Panel 1: As our story continues, it's Christmas Eve Night at the Pattermanse. Dainty Doll-Boy looks on as Eyeless Elly cleans out the fire place; it should be noted that she's putting the logs on a piece of newspaper that she's got her back to. This becomes important later on.
Panel 2: She sweeps the ashes into a dustpan; as she does so, Mike and Lizzie's silhouette admire her handiwork.
Panel 3: As she prepares to empty the ashes into the garbage can, she declares "There! Everything's all clean for Santa!"
Panel 4: This cheerful conclusion proves a tad premature; that's because Lizzie is playing with the soot-covered logs and getting dirty. As expected, Mike smiles and Elly is gobsmacked.
Summary: That's because it never seems to occur to Elly to do anything the easy way; she's all the time gotta be making more work for herself. Watching her complain about having no time to herself is almost as traditional as watching Kool-Aid Nation not being able to tell Lynn's failed attempt to imitate her original style with the genuine article. We can readily tell that when this appears in the next collection, it'll have a big-ass asterisk appearing next to it to indicate that it's a first-run strip but they won't. What they'll do is what
forworse expects of them and share "funny" stories that remind me of this British PSA. 