Sunday, March 9, 2008

Warning: the chief souce of what Lynn mistakenly calls humor in today's strip is the thing that most irritates trumanf about For Better or For Worse: A bunch of Pattersons making the following noises at the dinner table: CHOMP! SLUCK! SLLLOKKK!! GLLLMMMPPHHHH!!! As we begin, we see Liz making sandwiches for Françoise. Things are going well until the child opens up the sandwich and licks out the jam. When you consider that she just turned three Friday, this might not seem like it's that big a deal but Liz decides it's time to teach her some manners. Unfortunately, her way of dealing with the situation is to show Francie how disgusting eating like that looks by making a grotesque pig of herself. This backfired for two reasons. First, her undignified gobbling and messy face have sabotaged her attempt to establish herself as an authority figure because Françoise thinks Daddy has hired (and plays house with) an unusually stupid and juvenile baby-sitter. The second is that the child has a memory and realizes that the woman may say she thinks it's important to have good table manners, she says the same thing about speaking correct English. She doesn't practice what she preaches and the little girl knows it.