For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for February 23, 2023

You can’t have it both ways

45 seems so young to me now. My youngest child is going to be 45 in April.

For a friends birthday recently we had a nice celebration. On her card I wrote, “Forget about the past, you can’t change it. Forget about the present, I didn’t get you one!” The whole room didn’t just laugh or guffaw, they screamed! Tru story!

It’s better to be A year older than the alternative

You get older that’s something that happens to all of us, but here’s the thing… people die. They don’t get to see the next day. And that’s more messed up than you turning 45. You had a healthy, baby girl at an age when most women start having kids. You should be grateful for what you have and not what you don’t want to have.

How about another kid? Wouldn’t that be great???

When I was fixing to turn 40 I was grousing about it like Elly is and a friend told me not to think of it as turning a whole year older in one day. You’re only turning another day older. So you should start thinking about the next birthday right after this one. Then it’s not such a shock when that birthday arrives. You’ve had all year to think about it.

Maybe Ellie won’t lecture for a day.

Celebrate every year … every day … every minute! You’re alive. You’re strong. You’re healthy. You’ve created three amazing human beings. Ignore the “old” in growing old, and focus on the “growing”!

Sheesh! You mean her 45th birthday has even come yet? Oh woe is me, it feels like we have been suffering through her 45th birthday for the past 10 days already!

Growing older is a game I want to win. Every morning I wake up is a good start.

The pontificating ex-hippie shows why hippie is short for hypocrite.

I never had a problem of getting older. As long as I’m healthy and live the day to the fullest is a blessing in disguise.

NOTHING, now!!!

My wife of 45 years just passed away…….I’m remembering talks just like this all week………

This was my husband on his 30th. His mother used to always say she was 29 – she even bought the number candles & used them every year (one year he switched them on her…it wasn’t pretty…) – so it may have subconsciously affected him. I had to call everyone we knew & tell them not to send him anything…or, in the case of my mother, keep it kind: no age jokes (mom never forgot a birthday). After that, he was fine. As for me, I’m 58 and still haven’t hit my traumatic birthday.

A crying towel!!! omg get over yourself,none of us have control over our age!!!!

Hey at least you aren’t 46 that seems to be out of your mind. A 46 yr old grandmother pushed her 3 & 5 yr old grand-kids in a 36 degree river on Monday so they could have some ‘memories’.

Depends.

Well Elle, it might be time for one comic character, Master Oogway, to give you, another comic characte,r a little advice.

“Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift. That is why it is called the present.”

We grow too soon old….etc.

It is what all call the dreaded 5s. They start at 25, you are as close to 30 as you are to 20…so on up to 90-95-100, if you get that far.BTW at 45 you have already lived 45 years Elly.

What’s the present? Well, 45 is hexadecimal for…

Oh Shut up Ellie. I wish I was 45. (and knew what I know now)

Birthdays are good for you. It’s been proven that the more you have, the longer you live.

I think getting older is an accomplishment, and I’ve never understood lamenting birthdays. Funny story: My mom had a friend who was turning 90 and acting just like Elly — as if 89 is so youthful, but 90 is really getting up there!

Giving her? 45 isn’t that old so he’s going to give her his…

This is so weird. For the longest time, Elly was always way older than me in these strips.. She was old enough to be my mom. But slowly, through the weird vortex of time and the renewing of these strips, suddenly I am a few years older than her. That just doesn’t sit well. ;p

Get her a cake and presents and celebrate the day, John. Otherwise, you’ll be sorry.

never make a birthday gift …. a burial plot…

My 45th birthday is coming up soon and I’m more amused by the thought than anything. Worrying about it will just give you more wrinkles!

I did this at 5. I was so reluctant for that birthday to come that, instead of my usual favorite dinner, I asked Mom to make bacon and eggs just so I could go through most of the day pretending it hadn’t started yet.

My parents have never understood why it was such a big deal for me. I’m pretty sure it had to do with a birthday card I’d received a week or two early from my aunt. It had a long list of activities that five year olds could do, and I guess something in there seemed daunting.

Honey, they only get worse as you go along. 50 will be worse than 45. 60 will be worse than 50. 70 will be worse than 60, etc, etc, etc…

I bet if they take her at her word and REALLY don’t celebrate her birthday, she’ll be really upset!

I’m 45…

Do NOT give her a cane or walker.

Not a really polite question…..

why not?

try 50

My husband and I have reached the point where the question isn’t so much “what were you planning to give me?” or “what do you want?”, but instead “where do you want to go?” or “what would you like to do?”. The last thing we need is more stuff.

John intends to give Elly more wrinkles.

Just wait until you are 75, then complain!

So John, being a devoted and obedient husband, went out and hired a hit man…

What a drag it is getting old

Things are different today

I hear only Elly say

Elly needs something today to calm her down

Although she is not really ill

There’s a little yellow pill

She goes running for the shelter of an Elly’s little helper

And it sends her on her way, gets her through her naggy day

I just was not made for these times

I hear only Elly whine

Why are my kids perfect

Like kids born in the Baby Boom?

She goes running for the shelter of an Elly’s little helper

And four more helps her through the night and to minimize her plight.

Doctor, please

Some more of these

She really hates

OHIP’s long waits

What a drag it is getting old

Canada is not the same today

I hear only Elly say

Socialism doesn’t work anymore

And if she takes any more

John will be a widower

No more running for the shelter of an Elly’s little helper

These just helped her through the day, nagging all the way to her grave.

You stumped him!

Hell, I’ll be 63 tomorrow and I’m just happy to still be alive and functioning.

The old “I don’t want anything” trap. If you oblige, you are awful for not getting them anything. If you do get them something, you are awful because they said they didn’t want anything. It is TRULY a no-win situation!

Let’s all just be grateful every time we’re able to have another “today”. My mom died when she was 45, and I wish like everything that she’d had many more birthdays. When I turn 45 in just shy of a decade, I’ll be much more appreciative of my life than Elly is if I’m still here.

Elly’s irrational side is showing.

A swift kick?

You got yourself a nice toy a while back. Buy her a nice little non soccer-mom MR2 or something else. Put a bow on it .

Reminded of an idea I had, but didn’t get around to implementing, for my wife’s 40th, which was on a Tuesday: conspire with her workmates to act like it was already Wednesday. Spent her 50th in the Black Hills with her brother and nieces without mentioning it (though we did bring a cake for his 48th two days earlier). She finally accepted her age (for the first time since 30, when her boyfriend – two weeks shy of fiance – made her a half pound cake) when she turned 60, celebrating it at Disneyland which was nearing the end of its own 60th birthday celebration.

Guess I am kinda lucky that my age has never really bothered me.

I’m reading this and I realize my sister’s daughters are now old enough to hit menopause. OMG!

When this strip first ran I was 23 and 45 was pretty much unimaginable. I’m now 51 and it’s a memory.

Don’t worry, Ellie. If your birthday isn’t happening within the next couple of hours, he didn’t have a plan.

And on her 50th birthday,this started all over again.

I am going to be 41 in a month!