For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for July 07, 2022

when I’m working in my employed grocery store, the smells that get me the most are of roasted chicken and from the bakery’s kitchen

Hint hint ?

“Is that all you think about”?

When he is on the job then it’s all he SHOULD be thinking about.

Is that girl Rhetta?

He’s a teenage boy, and a girl has to ask him that question?

That’s a come on if there ever was one.

Was that the sound of disappointment or disbelief that all he thinks about is food?

Well I do think about checking out the checker

Looks like you got your first real lesson on how the world works, Mike.;-D

Looks like Mike just met Rhetta.

She was a lovely girl who was able to ground him firmly; her only problem was that she was far too connected to her family—especially her “helicopter” older brother Lorne.

And that’s a problem with so many people today; they just cannot set boundaries (I read “Dear Abby” daily, LOL)!!

Boing!

Mike blows another nascent romance

RHETTA!!! I was wondering when we’d get to her. That’s always an interesting little sub-story in the strip.

cue the ominous music

‘An ‘an ‘an hafta hafta ‘an hafta ‘an ‘an hasta hasta hafta ‘an ‘an ‘an….!

When I was a Marine Corps bootcamp, we had a week of mess duty where the platoon worked in the chow hall. I was assigned to the section where we chopped vegetables, made huge bowls of Jello and salads, and generally had all the refrigerated items. I spent a lot of time in the refrigerated room with all the produce. Whenever I go into Costco’s refrigerated room with all the produce, the smell and feel gives me flashbacks to that time. It’s amazing how smells can affect memory.

ZING!! Open your eyes Mikey…LOL

Well, yeah, but every twenty seconds some other stuff slips in there too.

Teenage boys, it’s either food or _____

Wait. ..what?

Wow! Mike is about seventeen years old. How old were you when you first had the sudden Earth shaking realization that food can come in bottles, cans, bakeries, and meat trays? Me, I think I was about 6 or 7 years old.

Open your EYES Mike!

Given the sudden introduction of a comely lass, that sounds rather sexual.

Well hello there opportunity! Yowza! Suddenly, Mike is no longer thinking about food!Good for him!

She’s flirting with him, right?

Doesn’t look like food is ALL he thinks about! He’s really saying that working in a grocery store has enlightened him as to where food actually comes from.

Welcome Rhetta. We’ll be seeing a lot of you for a while.

Grocery store should be arranged according to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs!!

She is more than curious.

Many years ago in Jacksonville,Florida——across the street from a major Military Base was a Maxwell House Coffee plant.

Once that factory got going you couldn’t smell anything else for miles in any direction.

I worked at a newly constructed GSK building across the street from a farm in Pennsylvania. It smelled like sh*t most days, and someone said the farm harvested fertilizer. Glad it was only a 6 month contract

I think the Young Miss, tried to get our young man to search for a question of getting back to the girl and boy subject.

I have a son, who is careful, as Mike should be with her, for the smells of food, I do not know it tempts him with the smell, to what customer’s buy. My son never asks the females out on dates, he treats it like a working business that he is employed at, he has 7 years, the grocery store only has part time workers.

Mike’s very short list doesn’t even make it as far away from His Grand Self as the store’s loading dock. He ought to know more about where food comes from than that.

Somebody’s gettin’ hit on…

I’m offended that you haven’t been thinking about me.

I think she may have him thinking about more than food, perhaps a girlfriend?

She’s flirting with you Mike!