Literal-mindedness and other Fooby thinking.....

It seems to me that the current dilemma in which a great deal of noise is being made because Mike was shoving the fact that he got back-to-school stuff while Lizzie got squat in her face only happened because Elly was too simple-minded to get Lizzie anything nice to keep her from feeling left out. If John had pressed the issue instead of trying to get an insincere apology out of a child who thinks that he has every right to stick his tongue out at people he feels better than, Elly would have stared blankly for a second and stated that since Lizzie was not in fact attending school, she should not feel like she's owed anything. This is because Elly is somewhat immature in her thinking and thus vulnerable to the temptation to be literal-minded and silly; as we've seen, she never quite gets to realize that what she wants is not what she's going to get.