For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for August 30, 2014

Speak for yourself.

Just invite yourself in, Anne! =-O

Elly – get a cattle prod. Write her name on it. Keep it by the door. And use it.

Which is why I stopped babysitting other peoples’ little darlings when I had my own. My second husband used to say the reason he really loved being a grandfather was that you get to give the kids back.

She really is a clueless twit!

Love the glare in her eyes in the last panel! If looks could kill….ouch!

Lynn’s Notes:

There were times when well meaning friends, knowing I was at home, would drop in during the day. I would come up from the studio, long enough to be polite — sometimes I’d put on the coffee, but I was on a deadline and every minute spent away from the drafting table was time I’d have to make up later on. One woman was very unhappy when I told her I had to work. Having two kids of her own, she looked at me angrily and snapped “So do I!” When I look back at all the comics I did while juggling family, food, chores, business trips, volunteer stuff and just plain living, I wonder how I managed to do it all.

But you never heard of everyone having their own computer until the early 90’s at least (at least I didn’t)

just DON’T answer the door. If they call you on it, say I was in the shower, or you had left with someone else. You NEVER have to answer your door if you don’t want to.

How about’s hanging one of those “Do Not Disturb” signs on the front doorknob? Though I’m sure Ann or whatever-her-face-is wouldn’t notice or think it applied to her.

We had a Commodore 64 early on. It was a keyboard with the computer embedded inside. It had 64K of RAM, and you had to buy a separate external floppy drive (5 1/2" disks) for data storage. We laugh today to think of what we were able to accomplish with 64K and how naive we were to think that the 100 Megabyte hard drive on our next computer would be all we would ever need. That one had Windows 3.1.We have a buyer’s guide book we bought when computer shopping back in the early 80’s. It lists everything from your TI to the TRS 80 and gives the advantages of each. There were so many computer manufacturers back then, each with its own OS. Some of them had internal storage drives (still with those 5 1/2" floppies) and some had tiny monitors included. (Our Commodore hooked up to a TV.) We kept the book for nostalgia reasons, and still get a kick out of looking at what was available then.

I would probably say, “well, gotta get back to work” and do it. Rude, maybe, but if they were good enough friends to stop by unexpectedly, they would understand.

“After all, who wants to be around someone who hasn’t invested in a computer.”

They were relatively quite expensive and large back in those days. This looks more like one of those electronic word-processing typewriters that companies like Brother were selling.

I had a friend years ago who would call out of the blue and ask what I was doing that morning or afternoon. It took a couple of times for me to realize that it would ALWAYS be followed by “Oh, great! Can you watch my kids?” I finally learned to say, “Depends. Whatcha got in mind?” And then I would require her to specify how long she would be. People who ask that question almost always are trying to trap you into their agenda.

Re cattle prods:Several years ago, there was a lady in our area that was using a pig prod (not quite as vicious as a cattle prod) to discipline her kids.DCFS got involved.The newspaper article did not say who turned her in-but I’ll bet one of the kids squealed!!

Shouldn’t Anne’s oldest boy be in kindergarten too? Isn’t he and Elizabeth the same age?

Yeah, but who could afford them in those days??????

Chris should be in kindergarten with Elizabeth.And Ellie is now stuck with Annie as her main neighborhood buddy since Connie left. Never know when she might need somebody to watch Elizabeth and Michael. Good news is the Enjo’s will be arriving soon.

Ellie: “You know Anne, there’s a terrific day care centre just down the block. You can enroll the kids there and enjoy the mornings to your self just like I do!”

But she probably had the income by that time to afford one. Also,I’m guessing she used it strictly for business purposes (typing and saving documents,designing layouts),as the Internet wasn’t quite World Wide and accessible to all at the time.

Shouldn’t Anne’s kids be in school now,too? The both look old enough!

Our first computer was a used Apple Macintosh with a black and white screen about 7 inches square that we used almost exclusively for work. That had to be in the early ’90s.

El should start talking about her plans for the day, and then say; “Oh look at the time, I better get started. It was nice visiting with you Anne, but I gotta get movin before the kids get home.”