Yes, dear readers, that is I. Mustard. And yes, I am wearing a giant banana suit in my living room. Why, you ask? (So many have, from my neighbours all the way to the zoo monkey who wanted to ‘peel’ me.) To that question posed I say ‘why not!’

I mean it’s not like I look like this every day of the week. I wear it every second day of the week and all day on the weekends. Does this make me crazy? Possibly. Eccentric?  Perhaps. A purveyor of potassium and electrolytes? Damn straight!

(Take notice that my cat Subira is at the bottom left corner checking me out.)

If you find this a little unusual here is a picture of my wife and I. She goes around dressed like Pancho Villa a good bit of the time now. And, she’s even studying Spanish! Oh, no!

So, half the time i don’t know what she’s saying anymore, and the other half of the time I’m asleep (as it is nighttime).

Actually, the real reason we look like this is that we were recently asked out to a costume party at a neighbour’s house. We dressed to the nines and I won first prize in the dance contest! I showed the judges all my moves (on paper first) before I let loose. All I can say is they were in awe. Their mouths hung open for what seemed like an eternity. I had them eating out of my hand! Then we all swung from the chandelier. Seriously!

One judge seemed aloof and studied me very carefully. Also, he kept looking down a lot of the time, apparently making plenty of notes. Actually, it was only later that I learned he was in fact drawing something. I managed to retrieve this picture from the garbage later that night when no one was looking.

I compared this picture with one I had received from someone else while attending another party in the previous month. Are they trying to suggest something? Are they intimating I need my head examined? Or, is their message something subliminal like I should eat more nuts for the protein – as I am a vegetarian – instead of injesting so many over-ripe bananas?

Notice that the artistry is unmistakably the same! Yet they were given to me by two different people. Am I crazy or is that even possible? Can two distinct people have the exact same drawing style?

I immediately phoned up Alexandre (Boloney) as he is the artistic genius behind Mustard and Boloney cartoons. I posed my dilemma. He said that can never happen – except maybe with twins – but that he himself often copies his own unique style to place into the next fresh cartoon we create. That’s what great artists do. But we never copy another person’s style.  So both cartoons must be the work of just one individual.

“Interesting”, I said. “So it would seem that this  cartoonist is a master of physical disguise but cannot mask his artistic tendencies. His style is like a genetic fingerprint.”

There was a lengthy silence on the phone.

Alexandre finally spoke up and added, “If you ate more bananas your vision would improve as they are a great source of Vitamin A. By doing that you would have clearly seen that these two cartoons could only be the work of the same person, and not that imaginary extra one in your head.”

An a-peeling thought. If he only knew.

Bon Appetit!