For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for October 07, 2014

Luckily John didn’t say that aloud in front of Elly and Michael.

Just grab the phone away from him Connie. The phone is YOURS and YOU pay for it after all. Grow a pair!

The good ole days when you had land lines and long distance charges!

I still find it weird that you got charged by the distance.

ripping off the consumer is an art Business has long been known for. and now Business runs the Government, Planet and American Empire. aren’t we lucky? lol

I remember when “unlimited long distance” was a big deal. Now it’s almost standard.

Hey Parents – Don’t phrase a command in the form of a question if you can’t deal with the answer being “No”.

Don’t we all have long distance included with the basic services these days.

Ah yes, a pun worthy of Stephen Pastis. (Or perhaps this was his inspiration, given the real time line).

We taught our kids to write letters. Not important, you say? Two of them are professional writers.

I can actually hear Mike’s voice in the second panel with his facial expression of self-righteous cockiness.

Up until the 50s, long distance calls were billed by the minutes used and the distance, because of the number of telephone employees needed to put the call through.Your call might be completed in several stages requiring an operator to connect to the next long distance station.Then, automation came along and along with the area codes, thousands of jobs eliminated. Then, someone realized that using the old billing system was tying up personnel to calculate the bills, and thus it would save money by just using flat-rate billing, ie charge by the minutes and not the distance.Someone estimated that if the telephone system today were manually operated, it would take one million persons to serve as telephone operators!“Number Please”

I still like my land line (and use for FAX and TiVo as well as ADT) but I Skype for long distance and like that much better. Cell phones usually have poor acoustics. I have one just for travel and occasional use (pay by the day when needed).

1985, about the time I remember the Reader’s Digest anecdote. Husband needs something from wife, she frequently replies ‘just a sec,’. Finally fed up he shouts, loud enough for the neighbors to hear, “No, no more secs. I’m sick and tired of secs.” Never lived it down.

No, we say “secs” just like you do. Lynn added the “es” to make it a pun.

I don’t have any problem with Elly disciplining her insolent kid.

Another idea could be for Elly to pull the plug (or in this case, the phone cord), then call back Mrs. Poirier a few minutes later. Michael could also be told to take whatever coins he has to the gas station and use the pay phone there to call Lawrence. How much money he has can determine how long he can speak.