Filling up stacks and killing time.....

Back before September 2008, Lynn had a curious habit that sort of distracted our attention from what she was saying; instead of assuming that her audience was capable of reading between the lines, she gave us a blow-by-blow account of the things she thought were important while hiding the background details in the monthly letters. She seems to be doing much the same thing now but, as howtheduck said, there's a subtle difference; it seems more than likely that Lynn has a largish pile of strips from the first and second years that are in no particular chronological order. When she needs a strip, she just picks the top one off the pile, sends it to the syndicate and vaguely hopes that it isn't something that's already appeared in the last year or so so she doesn't get an annoying phone call about readers complainig about repeating herself. It doesn't matter if by doing so, she makes the Pattersons look as if they have no short-term memory; all that matters is that she fills in time until next Spring.