For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for March 29, 2012

I can cook for myself, so this logic doesn’t work on me. Try again.

Marriage isn’t a one-way street; it can take you anywhere you want to go. Whether or not it becomes a dead-end is your choice.

BTW- I can burn a mean pot of water and dial-a-meal with the best, and I own a microwave and almost know how to use it, so cooking is not a factor.

Does cereal count?

If you think about marriage as being with someone who can cook & clean or has lots of money, it won’t work. If you think about it as being with your best friend, through good times and bad, then you have a chance.

“While she’s living like a queen on alimony, I’m working two shifts eating baloney, asking myself “Why didn’t you just learn how to cook”?" – Jerry Reed:“She got the gold mine, I got the shaft”.

Even though I’m female, I love the old quote (maybe from Louis Grizzard, I’m not sure)—“The next time I think about getting married, I’m just going to find a woman I hate and buy her a house.”

I do most of the cooking in our house.

Actually, cooking together is pretty darn fun!

So variety of “food” is the primary benefit? If it’s about variety, maybe staying single would be the more thoughtful conclusion… And meals are but a tiny straw in the marriage broom. (and I cook for my wife of 28 years as often as she cooks for me)

Oh, sure, stay for the cooking! Just like a man!

I hate cooking. I also hate cleaning. But put a rake or a spade in my hands and I’m in my glory. Also, riding mowers are a lot of fun. While I get the gist of this comic, I don’t agree with it. Also, in my old age, I really don’t see the “point,” of the marriage “contract.” If you love each other, you love each other. That’s that. All the legal mumbo jumbe causes a LOT of grief in the long run. Trust me. I know.

Please note that it was the woman here who made the point that marriage is about the woman cooking. That, by the way, is not the case in our house. We both cook – poorly but together.

I’m still single and I can cook at least a dozen dishes ;)

Doesn’t Ted the swinger still live with his mommy the enabler?

I’m a woman who graduated high school about 20 years ago, and I can’t cook worth beans. (heh, heh) Not because it’s “women’s work,” but because any cooking more complicated than boiling water and adding pasta always goes something like this:theoatmeal.com/comics/cook_homeAny guy who marries me thinking I can cook more than three dishes is going to be mightily disappointed. Now I’m going to go eat breakfast. I think this morning it’s going to be Triscuits with cream cheese. Yummers.

She needs to have the locks changed. Have all of his belongings outside. Had to do that with my step son who came to live with me, Sleep all day party all night.

Better be careful Johnny boy

I cook the house often. From a light flambé to a raging inferno. Depends on the day.

Agreed! (But you miss out on grandkids eventually)

I’ll bet that two people cooking at home can eat cheaper than one person eating out.

Jerry Reed summed it up nicely: “Why didn’t I learn to cook?”

But Jean’s really thinking, “How would you like sleeping alone every night?”

My church has absolutely no problem with considering the marriage of two men, or two women, just as holy and sacred as the marriage of a man and a woman.

So legalizing marriage between pairs of consenting adults regardless of their gender would for me, be respectful of the “sanctity of marriage.”

Funny how religious bigotry is “sacred” while religious acceptance isn’t…

Been married three times (I have other problems), and all three will tell you I was a better cook than they were when we married. They improved though.

ColoradoRon: It is so nice to have you around to tell God what to do.

Yeah, John can open a can of soup, heat it up, and eat. Then he can make a sandwich, plus a bowl of cereal.

@lighenup & MrJimCos – I think you’ve both hit the nail on the head. Anyone looking to live on hamburger helper or out of a micro wave just to maintain their so called “freedom” is welcome to it . I’ll take sharing with my best buddy any day.

The underlying problem, as I see it, is that the government refuses to recognize a union that doesn’t have a government issued “marriage” license.Marriage is a religious concept, and the government should not regulate it.“Marriage” licenses fall under contract law, and should be handled as such.As such, there could be a number of different types of contracts:

Cohabitation contract -two people living together, relatively easy to dissolve

Formation of a household contract -pretty much like the current system, combined finances, provisions for children, etc.

More complex types for three more participants.

none of these need to be gender specific, or even address the types of (or even lack of) bedroom activities.

I have two older sisters. When they graduated high school, they only knew how to cook desserts, which they learned to please boyfriends.

I tended to wake up early on weekends, before the rest of the family add learned to cook breakfasts by the time I was 9. Hey, I was hungry, and got tired of cold cereal.

After I joined the Boy Scouts, and suffering through my first camp out of hot dogs burned on a stick, I expanded my skills considerably.

A few years later, I was on a Scout trip. The Scouts all backpacked in all their gear, about 15 miles. The adults had all their gear delivered by pickup.

That evening, after the adults had their meal of canned chili heated over a Colman stove, Wonder bread, and instant ice tea, some of them came through my patrol’s campsite.Steak, seared in butter with mushrooms and onions, fresh peas with shallots, roasted potatoes with bacon, butter, sour cream and scallions, roasted corn on the cob, fresh baked biscuits, and apple pie with ice cream, all served with cold milk.All done with a campfire, patrol sized cook kit and a dutch oven.

It amazing how long you can keep things cold with a properly designed small cold box that only fills half a backpack and a small block of dry ice.

Ah, yes, the Bible, used by thumpers everywhere to justify cruelty to others while condoning bad behavior by Christians. According to the Bible, Christians should never shave their beards, should never wear clothing of mixed fibers, and should never eat shellfish. Nor should they pray in public, or judge others. Oh, and women should marry their husbands’ brothers if they’re widowed, men should “go unto” their wives’ handmaidens if those wives are sterile, and it’s perfectly fine to have several wives.

Funny, I don’t see many Christians doing these things, let alone insisting that we need laws to force everyone else to do them too. Nope, it’s just gay marriage that gets your knickers in a twist, even though there’s nothing in the Bible that says marriage is only between one man and one woman.

If you want to govern your life according to a selective reading of a much-translated, multi-authored text, have at it. No one’s stopping you; they’re just not agreeing with you.

But, my, it’s pretty arrogant of you to assume that your understanding of God must be the correct one, since your understanding of your own holy book is so weak. And it’s sort of pathetic to be insisting that people who don’t believe in your god or your Bible should be forced to live their lives according to it, when you can’t even manage to do that yourselves. (Oh, yes, what’s that line about motes and beams? Perhaps you should look it up.)

As I said, what you espouse is bigotry, flat out, however much you try to pretty it up with talk about sacredness and God and faith. Feel free to tell yourself that your hateful and arrogant feelings are God’s plan, but don’t be surprised that other people don’t agree.

KEEPING a wife? what century do you live in?

Lynnskay: I have read and continue to read the Bible, often before my congregation. I just can’t recognize anything biblical in his comments other than some out-of-context proof-texting that I recognize from segregationists, warmongers, sexists, and various others that believe injustice as long as the victims don’t look like them

A late summary: (after 70+ years of living)1. People can be very religious – when it’s to their advantage to be so.2. Get married so you don’t have to sleep alone? I’ll quote Jimmy Dickens on this one: I grew up with 14? other kids. I didn’t know what it was like to sleep alone until I got married!

yes but it doesn’t say to exclude other unions.

Wonder what the three dishes that John can make? I don’t cook but I do know how to make a lot of dishes .