(Original Publication Date, 13 January 1991)
Panel 1: We find ourselves on a winter day watching Mike doing something he has never done before and will never do again: trying to get Farley to fetch a snowball. This is so that Lynn can wax rhapsodic about something Willy The Small Black Don't Make Me Say That Dirty Word Spaniel did that she never imagined a dog could do owing to a complete lack of experience with dogs as a child.
Panel 2: Farley is a real dog today and demonstrates his hunting instinct by mouthing the snowball so he can bring it back to Mike.
Panel 3: The strip proper begins with Mike telling Farley to fetch the snowball he's about to throw.
Panel 4: Once again, Farley bites into the snowball like the dog he is.
Panel 5: Mike is so delighted with this (really rather late in his and Farley's life if you ask ME) discovery that he wants John to pay close attention to what he's just learned.
Panel 6: Mike demonstrates this "amazing" discovery by making and throwing a snowball so he can watch what Farley does.
Panel 7: Farley catches the snowball.
Panel 8: Mike is filled with marvel and glee because of this discovery he could have made long ago if he weren't so into Zombified Nitwit Life and wants John to marvel that Farley catches snowballs as well.
Panel 9: As John throws a snowball and Farley catches it, he agrees that it is amazing. This sets up the warped and stupid moral.
Panel 10: Mike might think that it's amazing that he's lived with Farley all of his life and not known he had a talent but (aside from being fodder for a passive-aggressive dig at Rod and the others), it's really a rather depressing (albeit highly predictable) thing to say.
Summary: Mike isn't an especially curious person, I don't think. According to the letters, he was twenty-eight when he first saw someone undergo morning sickness so he could marvel and be disgusted by this odd new-to-him thing Dee did. I should think that when Deanna is in the initial stages of menopause, he'll finally learn what menstruation is so he can marvel at that new to everyone ever thing.