(Strip Number 199, Original Publication Date, 24 November 1981)
Panel 1: We pick up where we left off yesterday; that's because Elly responds to the punchline by trying to convince Mike that Mrs Hardacre can't be as bad as all that. Mike's baffled frown says that he isn't willing to believe that someone that yells at him for no reason that makes sense to him and doesn't have a sense of human can be a good person.
Panel 2: She then smiles and commits a bit of a logic error by starting that since she's a Mrs, that means that someone loves her. This sort of disqualifies anyone single from being loved.
Panel 3: She then says that if he tries, he should be able to get along with her because she's probably very nice inside.
Panel 4: Mike says "So's a walnut." This, of course, is because both the food and the nasty teacher have hard, unyielding exteriors.
Summary: The problem, of course, is that Elly tends to suffer from a complaint I call "Not having empathy"; this comes into play whenever we see her children facing a typical challenge. Since she doesn't want to admit that her kid's feelings matter or that what happens to them when they're young defines who they'll be as adults, she's sort of a failure as a mother. She also doesn't seem to realize that she's witlessly damned all the single ladies out there because of her complex about the token that says she's taken.