Dear Journal… Hey… It's been a while, hasn't it? It's been ten years now since graduation. Got a job as a successful freelance artist if you can believe it. Me, Skeeter and Porkchop (who is inexplicably alive and healthy) are still buds and work together for a major comic book publisher here in New York where we now live, although they keep asking us if we can make our characters "more inclusive" (not sure what that means). Judy’s performing off Broadway, Mom and Dad retired, Ol' Mr. Dink keeps sending us videos of his latest purchases… and then there’s Patti… It’s my ten-year reunion, and I didn’t go. I was at home working like crazy, and I got a phone call while there… and it’s Patti. Patti Mayonnaise. And my heart’s beating fast. Forgotten feelings I had long since locked away suddenly start overflowing in my chest despite my better judgement telling me I should ignore them. I'm briefly taken out of my daze as she casually continues, ‘I was at the reunion! You weren’t!’ and I was like, ‘Yeah…sorry…I had to work.’ And she goes, ‘I found out you live in New York. Guess what—I do, too!’ And she told me where she lives. We lived across Central Park from each other. She was right here, with me, this whole time. I couldn't believe it. And she says, ‘Why don’t you come over for dinner?’
I couldn't believe what I was hearing, this was all too good to be true. I’m like, what do I wear? What will she look like!? All that’s happening as I’m walking across Central Park to her apartment, just wondering and just hoping, all those things. All those regrets, could we actually make up for lost time? Was this my chance to make up for my mistakes?
I get to the door, and you get buzzed up in New York, and so I walk up to the apartment and I hear the lock turn—it’s getting ready to happen—and she opens the door… and she’s there… she's… perfect. Just perfect. She just looks spectacular, even more beautiful than I remembered, more graceful and sweet than any memory I had, and she’s so happy, and her arms fly up and we hug, and I’m just [frightened guttural gasping noises]. She backs up and she goes ‘Look, Doug! Boobs! I got my boobs!’ [Laughs.] It sounds like I’m making this up, right? And I’m like, ‘Yeah… yeah, uh huh!’ ‘Yeah, they always used to call me Flatty Patti, but look!’ And she was just funny and fun and innocent, it was just like old times… Doug and Patti together again, ten years later, right? All that was missing was the old gang making silly remarks while Mr. Bones tells us to get back to class. But it was still perfect, like a true second chance. A return to those good old days…
This all sounds so wonderful, right Journal? I could hardly believe it myself, it was all just too perfect… until… she wheels and goes, ‘Oh, Doug, I want you to meet my husband.’
And there it was… the words that utterly destroyed every fiber of my being, rendered me completely broken, all I could do was barely form a nod of false approval. I was becoming dizzy, angry, depressed… so many things, but then that's when I heard it… that voice… that horrible voice… that voice that will haunt me for all of eternity in hell…
WELL, WELL! IF IT ISN'T MY OLD PAL! DOUGLAS. YANCEE. FUNNY!! [GREENSKIN LAUGHTER]
And I don’t even remember the rest of the evening… [throws journal into fire]