Alistair,

I met the in-laws for the first time last weekend. Understand that I realize my wife didn’t have a totally normal upbringing, but we’re working through it. Having met her parents and. . . brother(?) though, a lot of little details got explained. You see, they are actually Deep Ones from the time-before-time. Or that’s what they kept saying. I tried to find out if that was in the area, but it was just “time-before-time”. Anyway, they’ve got some very backwards ideas, in my opinion. I consider myself a Progressive Centrist , whereas they believe that the world should be returned to void and chaos. I know I shouldn’t have brought up politics, but it was too late. I left early. What’s the best way to make peace?

Let’s Not Mention Sports in Kennebunkport

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Let’s Not,

I would love to know how this “working through it” process of which you speak is going. The Deep Ones have made a whole bunch of attempts at establishing cosmic anarchy (a system of being in which matter holds no governance over existence) but have always been unsuccessful because of course they have. They’re not well.

It is very likely that your relationship with your wife has been orchestrated by her family in the hopes of getting an actual Living One to initiate their unravelling sequence. If they ask you to play some weird board game with them that involves reciting long passages of disconnected, booming syllables, don’t. It won’t destroy the universe because they’re a long way from creating a coherent, efficient formula for that. It will almost definitely have an unhealthy effect on you personally though. Death, for example.

Alistair