I know I haven’t talked to you since I came to your First Communion and your parents made me leave because I got drunk and urinated on the candles, but I think it’s time to tell someone where I am and why I left. I’m sure your parents have been telling you all sorts of strange things about my disappearance, but I always thought you were a bright, understanding, and fairly sexy kid (if you don’t mind my saying so) and I really feel a need to shine up my tarnished reputation back home. I’m not such a bad guy, you know. It was all just circumstances. I left… what was it, ten years ago? And it all started in my old office on Heifer Street.

So my eyelid was twitching again. If there’s one thing I hate, it’s twitching eyelids, and if there are two things that I hate, the second one is that I’m not strong enough to rip my eyelids off. If there are three things I hate, the third one is my old job. And if there are four things I hate, we finally get to those people who complain all the time. I mean, really, people—lighten up! I don’t care about your problems! Yeah, my wife used to say that that’s not a healthy attitude for a marriage counselor, but she said a lot of stupid things. What was I thinking when I married the daughter of a Portuguese bricklayer? I should have known.

But anyway, my eyelid was twitching, and it was stressing me out. To distract myself from the annoyance, I had to fall to Plan Z, my last resort: listen to the clients. Usually I would at least pretend to listen, but that day I had what I called a “Problem Couple.” (I mean, they were all problem couples, but… okay, a Catastrophe Couple.) These were the people who were so absorbed in their petty quarrels that I could have the Gameboy on top of the desk instead of in my lap and they still wouldn’t notice, even when I turned the sound up to drown out their voices. Let me tell you, Kenneth, in those days, all Problem Couples had really annoying voices. Sometimes it got so bad that I had to turn on my stereo and do a little break dancing, or run around in circles and throw fragile objects on the floor or out the window. At other times I would sing “Supercalifragilisticgetoutofmyoffice” over and over again at the top of my lungs. On special occasions—oh, you’ll love this—I would order a cageful of starved ferrets delivered to my office. I’d shake the cage around and dump the little beasts on the spouses. And while their clothes were being chewed off and they were losing a half pint of blood every second, they still found time to shout at each other. But if I could make it through all the shouts of “This is all your fault, Wallace,” and “If you hadn’t bought that eight thousand dollar refrigerator we wouldn’t be here, Jane,” and “This ferret looks like your mother, Wallace,” and “Now I know why you bought me those lightweight pants, Jane,” the office quieted down. Usually took ‘em about two minutes to pass out from lack of blood, and then I got to shoot the ferrets with my 9mm. The cleanup job was a pain, especially when the clients died, but those few minutes of quiet afterward were always a real blessing.

But I digress. Anyway, Kenneth, eyelids twitching plus Problem Couple equals a world of stress in my book. It really does now. I wrote it in the margins so I wouldn’t forget in the future, and I was about ready to skip the ferrets and get right to the shooting when I heard a voice coming from above. Yeah, I know, seems like one more voice would be the last straw, but this was a different type of voice. It was sort of like when you get captured by Mongolian guerilla fighters and they start force-feeding you brownies, but right when you’re about to throw up because you simply can’t eat another square of chocolaty goodness, you eat one that, unbeknownst to the guerillas, has marijuana in it, and suddenly you just can’t get enough brownies, you know what I’m talking about? Well, I mean, I don’t—I’ve never even been to Africa; but I imagine that’s what it would be like. The calming voice began to drone on about fairies in the sky, and all my cares floated right out of the office. When the husband dropped his cigarette on the floor and my rug caught on fire, I just chuckled. “Ha, ha, ha!” I told my clients. “Now we can have a campfire! Who brought the marshmallows?” They were both staring at the rug, and I could tell neither of them had any marshmallows. But you know what, Kenneth? I was okay with that. My desk went up in flames with a forceful whump, but the voice didn’t stop talking until the Gameboy started to melt. “OH NO!” shouted the voice, waking me from my trance. “YOUR GAMEBOY!” I grabbed the melting Gameboy, earning a scar I still show to everyone I meet, and realized that my entire office was on fire and my clients had fled. I barely escaped with my life that day, and by the time I made it out, my pants were singed off. Fortunately the police had arrived to escort me home. So if you were ever wondering, Kenneth… that’s where your parents got the picture of me without pants in front of a burning building, surrounded by cops. They probably told you some crazy story about me, fantasies, and arson, ha, ha, ha! Your parents always were some funny folks, Kenneth.

Anyway, that was a bit of a life-changing experience. I tried to move to Mongolia, but the agency couldn’t issue me a passport. Goes back to my college days when I was “convicted” of a “felony,” but that was just a mix-up. So instead I moved to New Mexico with my wife and joined the Mongolian History Society, where they imitate the medieval Mongolian lifestyle. My wife wasn’t too enthusiastic about it, but it turned out not to matter because she died on the yak ride before we even got to the yurt. Yes, yaks are usually gentle creatures, but remember, she was Portuguese. That’s just the way the cookie crumbles. I’ve since learned that the Mongolian lifestyle isn’t all fun and games, but I’ve always been an adventurous fellow. I’ve been studying a little bit, and I think it was Buddha talking to me in the office right before the building burned down. So, Kenneth, I have some advice for you, and this is important. Here it is: don’t listen to Buddha! THERE ARE NO FAIRIES IN THE SKY! Be careful around those silly parents of yours, too. And I’m enclosing the address of the nearest post office so you can write back. You don’t need to be afraid to reply, Kenneth; by now I’m sure I’ve convinced you that I’m just another normal guy. As we say in the Mongolian History Society, adios! By the way, I’m leaving all my yak skins to you when I die.