For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for September 01, 2022

And another rude salesperson gets exactly what they deserve.

sheesh, caller, you didn’t realize a toddler answered? no need to angrily tell the kid off

I’ve had automatic answering systems give me less satisfactory results and more frustration than April could possibly manage.

Hey caller, she did exactly what you said.

Is it just my eyes but it looks like they dyed the little baby girl’s hair with harsh chemical blonde dyes since 3 days ago.

https://www.gocomics.com/forbetterorforworse/2022/08/29

I know toddlers are hard work, but I do love the leg-hugging. Mostly compensates for the tantrums.

If the call was important, the caller will phone back.

But I bet it was just some telemarketer!!

What happened? Starting yesterday the old 1993 toon started not to be the same as the present toon.

Top 2 match

https://www.gocomics.com/forbetterorforworse/1993/08/31

https://www.gocomics.com/forbetterorforworse/2022/08/30

The next 2 No longer match.

https://www.gocomics.com/forbetterorforworse/1993/09/02

https://www.gocomics.com/forbetterorforworse/2022/09/01

“Mommy, the bad salesman tried to con you into buying furniture again!”

the person on the phone didn’t say where to put the phone now did they. :)

Toddlers are literal. They haven’t yet learned shades of meaning.

It doesn’t have to be a telemarketer; it can be someone she knows quite well… as others have said, she’s just doing literally what she’s told.

“Put down the phone” means put it down, nobody said “Don’t hang up”.

“Go find your mother”… well, she did. Nobody said “Tell her I’m on the phone.”

And nobody said “Please.”

 

A niece did her version of this.

I’d say “Let me talk to Mommy, please.” And she’d say “No.”

""Um… why?" “She busy cooking (or vacuuming, reading, etc)” or even “She on the potty.”

“Well, why don’t you please go ask her if she’d like to talk to me?”

“No. She busy.” Hang up.

 

They didn’t tell her not to answer the phone cos they were so proud of her….they really thought she knew how. It took a long time and many complaints from callers before they got it… almost long enough for her to learn how to do it right.

Not that she ever truly understood that she wasn’t the arbiter of whether you were allowed to talk to Mommy or Daddy.

Even in elementary school she’d screen calls according to her own plans. She’d tell you Mommy was cooking, and she was hungry, so you’d have to call back later.

 

She wasn’t disciplined because her parents believed children should be “allowed a voice.”

It wasn’t great preparation for later in life.

Egads…!

In the old days, a door-to-door salesman asked a little boy playing on the sidewalk, “Is your mom home?”

Little boy: “Uh-huh.”

Salesman (after knocking for several minutes without getting an answer): “I thought you said your mother was home.”

LB: “Yes, sir. But I don’t live here.”

Somebody doesn’t know how to follow simple instructions!

She IS just a little one yet. Caller is a bit harsh!

It might have been dad or a grandparent….

Learning how to use that ‘thing’ on the table by the couch.

So we started this week off with El Sclubbo Gordo and St. Michael’s puppy love… but then it quickly switched to random one-liners. What gives?

Calvin would’ve dealt with that caller way better.

Like being snotty with a Genie…Wish Granted!

We should all be so lucky as to have those like April.

Love the Princess phone – wanted one but never got one.

Smart phones have robbed cartoonists of a deep well of joke ideas.

I’d hang up on him too.

Poor kid! But she should not answer the phone!

Will comply. Mission accomplished. Perfection.

This makes me nostalgic for land line phones. Remember how you actually used to, gasp! not know who was calling?? And you would just answer the phone hoping it was the boy you liked or something? We had this super long cord that allowed us a bit of privacy, but you could never escape for real. None of this blasted texting with emojis. We actually talked to each other… and I’m not that old! Just a product of the 80’s. I kinda wish we were still there.

April has taught the perfect “College Course” on how to deal with nuisance callers.

Send your $50.00 tuition fee to t he Toronto suburbs

That’s how you handle telephone solicitors…

This is a weird one.

I just start speaking in tongues. They don’t call back

LOL… sheput down the phone and found her Mom. Just as the caller told her to do. Too funny.

If ANYONE in this strip(besides Elly) needed to be hung up on…

Congrats, April, you did well.

Leave it to a toddler.

If this were a friend calling Elly, they would have known that it was April answering the phone and reacted accordingly. So this must be a stranger or telemarketer making a cold call.

The caller might have figured Elizabeth or Michael answered, as those words are what you would expect from someone in public school

Everyone is talking about telemarketers. However, suppose that Elizabeth had gotten in an accident and Elly was being called about parental permission to admit her to a hospital?

April got so scared, she hung up on the caller. (I dislike it when people are so hostile, as well.)