For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for January 24, 2013

One can only imagine, Connie. One can only imagine.

If competence is shown, effort will be expected.

What? What secret? The cat’s out of the what, now?

It’s not the knob so much as where the soap goes.

My head’s gonna explode, Paul.

I know a family here that has to get a friend to set the clockon their VCR because its always flashing 12:00 AM all the time and their too dumb to figure out how to do it themselves.

One of my housemates is a nurse, and the other is a PA. Neither has the sense God gave a billy goat.

Ability and motivation are different things. He’s not there because he wants to play with the knobs on the dishwasher.

When I was in school it was required for all girls to take a shop class. The only thing I remember from that is nearly cutting off my finger and fainting. That was when I decided not to become a nurse.

Then in high school, I changed schools between my junior and senior year. The new school required a cooking class to graduate. I was the only senior in a class full of freshmen.

He can, but he plays dumb because he doesn’t want anything to do with doing the dishes.

My husband’s son and daughter-in-law have degrees in Marine Biology and Zoology but when their cat had kittens they were unable to tell which were female and which were male. However their six-year old daughter had no trouble at all and I was able to confirm it. I have no university degrees, just common sense and life experience!

It helps if you HAVE a dishwasher…

It would appear that he’s figured it out just fine.

The more you know the more you have to do !!!!!!!

He only pretends he can’t figure it out. He can if he wants to. His problem is he doesn’t want to. He thinks it’s women’s work so he’s too good for it. It’s a con, Connie! Just like another con they like to use, “You’re so much better at it than I am!” That way they get out if it. If women would stop falling for this BS men wouldn’t keep getting away with it.

As a PhD I can say we are not all useless. I grew up doing manual labor (thus the reason for college) and still work alongside my technicians when making stuff in the lab. I have never asked them to do something I woudln’t or hadn’t done. The difference is if it has to be done repeatedly they do it not me as it is a waste of my time at that point.

Ted knows how to deal with the dishwasher. He is just pretending that he doesn’t so that he doesn’t have to do any “women’s” work. I have known guys (generally friends dads) who somehow managed to never chaneg a diaper because they didn’t know how or acted incompetent at it

BLAH, BLAH, BLAH, BLAH…let’s just simplify this: Ted’s lazy. He’s likely hanging at Connie’s house, because he’s grossed out by the cockroaches swarming HIS house, from not doing his OWN housework.

I thank God for atomic clocks. You don’t have to worry about setting them.

“Why don’t all you people exchange e-mail addresses and stop using the comics to communicate?”Because it’s more fun this way.

There was one strip where John was helping Elly with the housework. Elly was in a typical “housewife perfectionist” mode, screeching at John over every little part, then shouting “If you aren’t going to do anything exact, don’t do it at all!” John then shrugs his shoulders to suggest “I give up”. The last panel joke was that Elly was with Connie and said “I don’t get why John never volunteers to do housework”.

I know what you mean. The power goes off and comes back on after a few minutes, everything starts blinking. The digital clocks are easy enough but, the vcr ….you have to go through some changes. That’s a good thought about the duct tape. Thanks.

I don’t know why Connie is complaining about Ted’s behavior now. She’s getting exactly what she went after when she pursued and then entered a relationship with him. He was lazy, selfish, egotistical and self-centered (among oh-so-many other things that can’t be said in a family strip!) when she started dating him and — surprise, surprise! — nothing’s changed in that regard. Looks like maybe the bloom is starting to wear off the rose of this makes-absolutely-no-sense-at-all relationship of theirs and she’s finally beginning to see Ted for who he really is.

I usually put off doing the dishes until the sink is almost full. The funny thing is, once I get around to doing them, the job isn’t as hard or time-consuming as one would think from my procrastination.

Because the poor guy spent all that time studying. Still blaming the victim

Ted was living with his Mommy. He never had to lift a finger to do anything for himself.

No kidding. I worked trades jobs through all four of my degrees (Yes, one of them was a PhD). They taught me to appreciate the college learning a whole lot more and the college taught me how to do the trades jobs much more efficiently (as well as realize that trades jobs are a career dead end for about 90% of the people in them). It’s classic American reverse snobbery to assume that one kind of learning is superior to the other.

Look at it this way folks—if higher education is so useless, why has it been deliberately priced so far beyond the means of most? Think about that. Don’t be a sheep.