Everybody's talking at me.

Panel Three of today's strip explains a lot more than April's ignorance of the Telethontelethontelethon, doesn't it? She states that John told her about the thing but she just sorta tuned him out. IF she hadn't said so specifically, I'd have been able to make a real good guess that it did. Like the rest of her family, April makes a horrible, horrible mistake; she assumes that, since John isn't a teenaged girl and doesn't generally talk about the stuff she finds important, he has nothing worth saying so she doesn't really have to listen. Her idea of holding up her end of the conversation is making a non-commital noise that simulates agreement so the other person will go away and she can go back to whining about how nobody ever tells her anything. This is why the Pattersons don't really communicate, isn't it? Each and every Foob drifts off to Cloudcuckooland because the other person is not as he or she is so cannot have an opinion that REALLY matters. This is why April feels left out of the Housening; she won't make herself a part of it. For all we know NOW, John and Elly may have made an effort to involve her in the discussion and she may have been PHYSICALLY present but her mind was elsewhere. Possibly on the planet Self-pity.