(Strip Number 4009, Original Publication Date, 19 May 1981)
Panel 1: It's the next morning; as John drinks his coffee, Elly notices that he really didn't appreciate her going out on the town last night.
Panel 2: She makes that ridiculous palms-out gesture as she says "But it's perfectly all right for you to go out all hours with the boys"; if she were to realize that he does so so he can spend the night nursing one scotch and looking down his nose at people who aren't dead from the neck down, her head would explode.
Panel 3: John sets up the punchline by saying "That's different..."
Panel 4: John then makes a foolish mistake by saying "...when I'm out, I know where you are." We do too; sitting at the kitchen table fuming because her idiot husband didn't realize that despite telling he could go out, she actually wanted him to stay home. Since he doesn't understand that, he gets called a chauvinistic bully who wants to use his unfair double standard to keep Elly home.
Summary: This, of course, is probably how Lynn interpreted his saying "What, you couldn't have phoned? I sat up all night worrying about you!" That's because worrying about other people seems to be seen as a bad thing. What I find really interesting is that just as Kool-Aid Nation thought that John said that Elly could not have an electric can opener ever, they assume that what he "really" means is that he doesn't want her going out at night with friends.
