For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for March 22, 2024

She has her priorities straight.

Gramma Carrie meets April for the first time and she does not seem to be particularly enthusiastic. I guess this is what happens when you have two sons and a daughter and they all have multiple children. When you get to grandkid #9, it does not have the same impact that grandkid #1 did. I don’t have any grandkids myself, so this is just a guess on my part.

They wouldn’t be able to keep lunch down. Reckon the airline was running low on barf bags!!

We don’t do that anymore. Park and meet inside the terminal and walk to baggage then back to car. We meet curbside and drive away. These days we pack lightly due to the hefty baggage fees. I know I did. I flew with just a carry on which was free and a heavy backpack I used as a purse for a five-day visit. Both times hubby dropped me curbside and son picked me up curbside. I didn’t see anyone exiting the plane to the terminal being greeted by anyone waiting to meet them. We all walked straight to baggage or the curb outside. Another motive would be avoiding paying parking fee.

I don’t know of any senior citizens who are willing to fly all the way across the country just to babysit someone else’s kids.

Guess what, now you won’t! I remember calling Alaska Airlines and asking what kind of fish I could have, They named 4 dishes, I picked one. Then she asked if I wanted Vanilla or Chocolste Cake. On another flight we got puff pastry swans for dessert. And during bad turbulence once they passed out. free packs of cigarettes. Now, nothing, unless you pay $15 for a snack box.

Having been a FA for 10 years, I can attest to some serious jostling at times. But that was not the fault of the pilot, but was the passenger.

Ah, the good old days when passengers got meals on flights. When I was a kid we even got a meal on a 2-1/2-hour flight from NYC to Florida and vice versa. Now we don’t get a meal even on a 5- or 6-hour flight to the West Coast. Last time we flew, even the airport “limo” charged us $10 to have a bag in the trunk. Yet more of the “perks” that make flying today such a poor experience. I used to love flying. No I dread when I have to fly.

Worried about not being served lunch?? Wow, you can tell this strip is from a by-gone era. I cannot remember when the last time I was served a meal on a plane!

Lunch is important. Nobody wants to die falling tens of thousands of feet out of the sky at hundreds of miles per hour in an aluminum metal tube on an empty stomach.

And then they GOT lunch……..and wish they hadn’t. What is it ? Could be meat. Could be cake. Meatcake. ( George Carlin)

That was why the Osmonds were so happy with Marie.

I’ve been reading this strip for a LOOOOOONG time, and I’ve never seen or heard of “Carrie” until now.

First world problem.

Tip from a formerly airsick flyer: a couple of ginger capsules before flight is very effective at curbing air sickness for most people.

The flight attendant got on the PA and said “fellas, it’s too rough to feed ya….”

Lunch on a plane?

I assume Grandma Carrie is John’s Mother….??

I take it she is John’s mother since Ellie called her “Carrie”.

Oh, almost missed out on the yummy plane food.

Makes me glad I’ve only had short flights I’ve had to be on lately.

Well Carrie, with airline food these days, not getting lunch is probably a good thing. Saves you a lot of money as well since the only thing that the airlines don’t charge for these days is the air you breath, and they are working on a way to do that if they can.

Better than losing lunch.

At least the airline she was on served lunch. Flying back from Hawaii a few years ago all they had was a dried out breakfast taco for $10.

I thought everyone hated airplane food!

Today April:

*held her mother’s hand and did not go running around in public like a wild Injun.

*hugged her grandmother.

Has April been very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very good as she promised her mother yesterday?

Panel 3: Carrie looks like she’s stoned.

One of my aunts was a flight attendant for Pan Am in the 1940s and 1950s when they were called stewardesses. No microwaved meals or anything like that. (But they did have convection ovens) She loved the transatlantic flights with prime rib and all the other trimmings of a gourmet meal. She became a pretty good cook and after retiring from the airline at the advanced age of 37 she opened a restaurant. And was one of my cooking instructors along with my grandfather (her father). When I asked why did I have to learn to cook ar age 9 each said “Cooks never starve.” RIP Grampa and Aunt Arlene. You still live in my kitchen and that in old tattered notebook with all the recipes I copied down. And there is a stain of cioppino sauce (among many) from the first time I tried under her supervision. Brings back a warm feeling every time I make it. Which was last Friday night. Tomorrow is Grandma’s Chicken Fettuccine Alfredo. With extra garlic and pepper. (“It’s not Alfredo sauce if you can’t see the pepper.” Freshly ground, of course.)