For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for November 15, 2016

er… rest that flu? (I bet the Game Boy hadn’t been released yet at this time period… specially in Canada)

Yes, actually. In fact, whenever I have the flu, all I WANT to do is go to bed and sleep!

Oh be practical Elly, my Mom would let me watch TV when I got the flu. I mean, I still slept but when I was awake, I watched TV. But then again, I grew up in the 90s

That “flu” just flew out the window.

duh it’s not like you can’t watch a video in the sofa with blankets! What else are you supposed to do if you can’t sleep!

What happened to the green skin?

Pick up videos? Where Blockbuster? Ah the age before Netflix, and Hulu. Innocent times indeed.

Oh how those words resound in my memory ! " If you’re to sick to go to school, young man, then your too sick to.___________( fill in the blank) !

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Words uttered by every mother, at one time or another –Except, perhaps by the mother of a certain neurotic poster.

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No doubt we’ll hear all about that neglect, later.

My mom was the “too sick to go to school, too sick to leave your room” those four walls got awful boring! Good thing I was a bookworm….

Calvin and Hobbes had it where Calvin was bedridden and his mom said “It is Sunday, by the way, you will not miss school.” Calvin weakly replies “That’s OK”, causing his mother to rush to call the doctor as she figures he really must be sick!

This was probably so far back that they’d need to rent a VCR to watch videos. ;)

In 1918 there was a huge outbreak of flu that killed millions world-wide. This little nursery rhyme always breaks my heart when I think about it. I don’t know why I thought about it today.

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I had a little bird, Its name was Enza. I opened the window, And in-flu-enza. — Children’s Skipping Rhyme, 1918

In my day, 1940, I’d be Arthur Godfrey selling Lipton Tea,or Stella Dallas, Back Stage Strife, & other yuck. Or read!

He doesn’t seem that sick yet. When you are really sick living is hard, eating is hard, staying conscious is hard.

I’m about five years after you but we didn’t get a television set until the mid 50’s so I was brought up with radio and reading.

I still remember all the daytime radio programs, that I listened to as a kid, when I was home sick from school.

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Aside from the ones you mentioned, remember “Our Gal Sunday”, “Lorenzo Jones”, “Young Doctor Malone” and of course Don McNeil’s Breakfast Club ?

Nighttime radio was much more fun !

Dialog from years ago when we raised pigs:“There’s a sick pig over in the west woods.”“Why didn’t you bring him back with you?”“Couldn’t catch him!”

When you’re really really sick, all you want (or can) do is lie in bed and not move.

It is funny how times have changed. Most folks here think that videos and video games are fine…. mostly because the occupy the kid (Michael).

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In my own household, my mother would never have allowed television (or therefore videos or video games either), and would not even allow me to read a book. The idea was not to be PUNISHING or MEAN… the idea was to make sure the ill person RESTED so he/she could get better.

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Now, in reality, the activities of reading, television, video games, or videos… none would really be all that taxing. But, what I said above about “resting” was the primary criteria why alot of mothers would say no to anything other than sleeping.

Starve a cold, feed a fever (or vice-versa). But what do you do with flu?

This probably mid Eighty’s. Wiki says Liz was born 6/26/1981 .The strip was rebooted 9/1/2008 back to when Liz was just a baby. Go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_For_Better_or_For_Worse_characters to get alll the info on all of the characters.

When you are in Intensive Care. My brother is there right now, fighting cancer. Believe me, watching a movie is beyond his abilities at this point…

when i had the flu, i was sick as a dog but managed to watch tv, in between sleeping coughing and sneezing.