I hesitated from posting this strip when the event, depicted as accurately as possible in the strip, originally occurred. I told people about it, to be sure, but things posted online seem to have a way of being found. I’m over it. Imagine, if you will, not just your standard I-cannot-pay-you new client meeting scenario, but one in which your absolute dream project, perhaps the very thing you have wanted to build since childhood, is dangled in front of you for an hour of your life. And that, at the end of this hour, you have received assurances that this is a legit deal, they are a legit business, and they want only you for this.

And then they say, “But of course we can’t afford to pay you yet.”

For those not in design, try the following exercise in order to relate: Find an adorable 4-year-old girl. Give her a puppy. Let her name it; let her pet it and hug it. Then take the puppy and throw it off a cliff. The girl’s face is my face. That was the analogy. Your mind is blown.