Cul de Sac by Richard Thompson for January 11, 2023

Ick for sick, of course, or maybe a sick flavor. Or else Mom is doing Alice a slick favor!

If it’s pink it has to be good tasting, right?

Your Honor, Mrs. Otterloop definitely did say, and little Alice heard, “ICK”; she then tried to cover it up by exclaiming a subsequent half-hearted “yum”, but let the record show, she did initially say “ICK”.

I don’t recall pink medicine ever tasting good.

She said “BOO-urns!”

ick-static…

Maybe she just doesn’t like cotton candy.

Brought to mind a Monty Python & the Holy Grail scene. The Knights Who Formerly Said Nee. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZvsGdJP3ng

No matter how many times I read it, I never tire of this story arc.

It can be really bad

The emphasis underlines in the last panel are great!

I thought only tropical fishes caught the dreaded Ick.

Puts the “ick” in “Sick”…

Maybe it was “lick” with the “l” missing…

The ‘yum’ is too late, as Alice sticks with the ‘ick’.

Tell her ICK stands for “It’s Candy, Kid.”

A rare mis-step by Mom, here, probably triggered by some long repressed childhood memory of the last time she was tricked into taking icky medicine by HER mother.

What was the conversation she and her mom had? Is Madeline now thinking how much she sounds like her mother?

Some traditions take unlikely forms, but are none the less passed on from generation to generation.

Parental faux pas.

Ooooh, pink! Is it Pepto Bismol (a.k.a. bismuth subsalicylate)? As I recall, that had a kind of chalky but not altogether unpleasant taste.

Take you medicine like a Big Girl, Alice!

(Madeline? Watch your impetuous tongue….)