Dear Ralph,

This isn’t easy. It has been so long since we’ve spoken that I have trouble finding the right words to convey how I feel. That day mom threw you in the garbage still haunts my memory like the Patrick Swayze to my Demi Moore. I tried my best to disguise my remorse when I looked into your little mouse eyes for the last time, but behind my placid exterior I was distraught. You were my best friend, but I let you go as if you were nothing more than a cheap prize at the county fair. You have to understand, I was almost 13 years old. I was starting to grow whiskers on my chin and notice breasts. I was becoming a man. I couldn’t be caught with a stuffed animal – it would ruin me! It is true that for the past six months I had been stuffing you under my bed during the day, your pink felt head mingling with the dust bunnies surrounding my Archie comics and Pokemon cards. However, you must recall that I always pulled you out at night. It was a secret relationship, yes, but it was still a relationship! That has to mean something! At night we were pals, fending off nightmares of forgetting to wear pants to school, or imagining figures within the amorphous globs floating inside of my lava lamp. We once saw Thomas Jefferson, remember?

Mom was right when she pulled you out from under my bed and said you were tattered and dirty. Your once immaculate corduroy pants were now gray and worn, and a habit of chewing on your ear had resulted in a permanent drool stain. Split seams leaked stuffing underneath your arms and your tail had long ago played chew toy to the evil family cat. But none of that mattered. You were just worn in, perfectly aged like a well-oiled baseball mitt. Still, I let her toss you in the dumpster simply because she said, “Stuffed animals are for little boys.” Part of my childhood innocence retreated into the depths of my subconscious that day, but I have managed to drag it out of the abyss in order to make things right. Ralph the stuffed mouse, wherever you are now, whether it is snout down in a landfill or eating little cubes of gruyere in the sky, I just want to say that I’m sorry.

Your Friend,

Tyler, age 20