For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for July 23, 2010

What else are big brothers for but to impart important knowledge?

Ellie should tell Lizzie that it only smells like there’s a boogie man in the outhouse.

Fifty years later I remember spiders.

@Lewreader: BOO! :-)

Little Miss Muffet sat in her outhouse, hoping the spiders weren’t there, Eight little toes, tickled her nose, and gave her a terrible scare!

Three very different (and funny) expressions, especially Michael’s. I’m an older brother too. Michael has class.

HAAA I remember when this came out the first time long ago! I was dating a exchange young man from Brussels and had to explain what a Boogie man was to an 18 year old !!!

As if she had to ask! LOL!! Typical of an older sibling :-)

The best revenge is getting even. Ellie should make Michael change Lizzie’s diaper!

That’s the first outhouse I’ve ever seen with a doorknob and keyhole.

Never met the boogeyman in a campground’s outhouse, but have met quite a few skunks and one territorial blue jay.

I still think it will turn out that they’ve broken into the wrong cabin. (I never saw this storyline first time round, obviously)

How long is this going to go on before they realize they’re at the WRONG CABIN????

With all those nice trees and bushs, Who needs an outhuse?

Pretty fancy outhouse! It has a doorknob on the door! I don’t remember any I have used in the past that had one.

Thank you tinkertiles! They must be VERY dense. Can you imagine Ted even thinking of using an outhouse? I don’t think so. Wait until they get home and Ted asks them how they enjoyed the power boat and the hot tub (I never saw the original, but I can just imagine). I still think they should have paid close attention to the grocer yesterday. These guys know everything about the area you are in. There is a big difference to someone who lives there between “mighty fine” and “good view”.

The boogie man only comes out when there is a full moon.

I remember using the outhouse at my grandparents’ “ranch” when I was a kid. They had set it on a ledge on the side of a ravine, below ground level so it couldn’t be seen from the cabin. You had to walk down a steep path with a switchback to get to it. That was LOADS of fun in the dark! And I do mean dark - no light except moon and stars and a circle of light from your flashlight. Everything else was invisible. (Now that I think about it, what must my grandfather have gone through to dig that hole, create the path, and build that little shack!) They kept an old milk carton full of powdered lime to sprinkle in the hole so he never had to do it again.

I bet Ted’s ‘cabin’ is more like a day-spa/lodge-in-the-woods! Can’t wait for when they discover they’ve been @ the wrong place all along =)

Lizzie’s potty training is going immediately in reverse. She wants to go back to diapers!

LOL, cleokaya!!!

When I was a kid, my big brother told me the boogie was in the toilet part of the outhouse and would grab my tush! Took me years to voluntarily go in one of those things.

It’s not the boggie man you have to worry about in the outhouse these days, it’s the hidden web cam.

No Boogie Man - just lions in the hole. At lease that is what my brother told me when I was very very little and we visited relatives on a Texas farm. Needless to say, I went in a potty pot.

Sorry, I never had been there to see the wooden outhouse in my whole life, but I had been seen the fiberglass or something like a “sanitary booth” with full of gross stinks! Oh ewwwwwwww! I never like to go into that booth with full of stinks. Sheeshhh!

that story michael told lizzie wouldn’t have worked on my youngest, his favorite movie at 3 years old was nightmare on elm st 3

An outhouse was the 2nd bathroom at my grandparents’ house when I was a child! Originally it was the first and only toilet they had when my mother (who’s now 74) and her 2 older sisters were young children living way out in the country until my grandfather was finally able to save up the money to build the only one I’ve ever known on the inside. But, even with a brand new in-house bathroom, he still left the old ugly, scary, stinky, one standing in its original place. It finally went when the wood rotted to the point where, if it didn’t get torn down … it was going to “fall* down — which would have been dangerous for anyone that might have been in there if the one in the house were occupied at the time!

Here in Australia you don’t have to worry about the boogie man in an outdoor toilet, it’s the redback spider!

There was a redback on the toilet seat, When I was there last night. I didn’t see him in the dark, But boy I felt his bite. I jumped up high into the air, And when I hit the ground. That crafty redback spider, Wasn’t nowhere to be found.