If you’re into art (and who isn’t?), then you know all about MerMay. Winslow knows all about this very special month as well. He likes to look at beautiful fish ladies as much as the next guy, but he also knows that true art appreciation requires themed beverages.

You might think patchouli, but that’s not what I mean. I mean spicy shoes left to fumigate by the door. Acrid plastic yoga mats made in China that will take Vedic ages of rebirth to break down in a landfill. Gluten-free soy candles blessed by Peruvian shamans that cost an arm and a leg. Burned sage sitting on top of a seven-layer dip of cologne created by human bodies in motion.

This comic is based on a conversation my daughter and I had. The dialogue is transcribed word for word.

Why are you here? Strike that—you don’t have to answer that. It’s what’s called a rhetorical question, obvi. Also obvi: you came here for wisdom, for guidance, for that one little nugget of an insight which you can squirrel away and unleash upon the world in a big way. You came here with a plan, a tablet, a book rearing to go. Maybe it’s werewolves in space. Maybe it’s vampires meets Das Boot—Dracula in a Submarine. Maybe it’s Bambi-grows-up-and-commits-Bambi-patricide. Turns cannibal.

It looks like Ben and Winslow must live near me, because I can’t figure out the weather we’ve been having, either. Right now it’s in the high 80s, but the week before it was cold and rainy, and we had insane winds before that, and snow in March, and fireballs in February, and hailstones the size of babies, and then a rain of actual babies after that tornado ripped through the maternity ward. Strange times, indeed.