Hi. It’s me, Teddy Ruxpin. The storytelling bear from your childhood.
It’s been a while and, believe me, I’m as happy to see you as you are to see me. To tell you the truth, when your mother asked you (for what, like the 2,000th time?) to come to pick up those boxes you’ve been storing in her attic, I wasn’t expecting you to finally show up.
I’ve had some pretty good years nestled here between your old prom pictures, yearbooks, and notebooks full of race car drawings. Remember when you were going to be an artist? And now look at you: A speech-language pathologist. Who’d-a thunk it?
Remember the time you brought me to show & tell and some of the duller kids thought I was just some mass-produced, animatronic toy and not a real magic bear from an enchanted storybook land? Oh, man that was great.
Yeah, it’s really nice catching up like this, but I do feel like we need to have a little talk, bear to man:
Stop putting mixtapes in me, asshole!
Look, I know it was hilarious when we were younger. I’d tell you the story of how Grubby, Newton Gimmick, and I were captured by the Mudblups and how we escaped to save Princess Aruzia from the Gutangs. Then you’d get bored, eject the tape, and pop in Metallica’s “Master of Puppets.” We’d both have a grand olé time rocking out to “Creeping Death,” pushing my cheap little speaker and my strictly bi-directional jaw to their breaking points.
It was awesome.
But it’s time to leave childish things behind. You’re forty-fucking-three years old.
Snap out of it!
You making me belt out songs on an old mixtape you made for Jackie Saltzman—a girl who didn’t even let you get to second base—is beneath us both.
And, honestly, what were you thinking? Spin Doctor’s “Two Princes” on both the A and B sides? I think we have our evidence for why the relationship only lasted two and a half weeks.
Not to mention the fact that you taped intros for every song.
I’ll never be able to fully explain how degrading it is that I—the most famous Illiop in all of Grundo—would have to speak in your puberty-riddled voice while introducing Paula Abdul’s “Forever Your Girl.”
“Jackie, this one’s to let you know that I’m forever your boy. Will you be my date for the Spring Fling Dance?”
Well, we all know how that went. Your mom spent $30 on a corsage and Jackie spent the entirety of Guns & Roses’ “Patience” frenching Pete Burkardt by the water fountain next to the teacher's lounge.
Why would you want to relive that? It's just sad.
Almost as sad as me having to sing the Gin Blossom’s “Found Out About You” while you’re lounging in an old, dusty bean bag chair, thumbing through a dog-eared copy of Garfield Takes the Cake.
Seriously, there’s an old boom box right over there. I’m sure you can rustle up eight D batteries. Then you can listen to Color Me Bad’s “I Wanna Sex You Up” to your heart’s content and I can keep a tiny fraction of what’s left of my dignity.
I’ve built a good life for myself here. I’ve started seeing one of your sister’s My Little Pony dolls, I’m in a weekly poker game with a couple of Thunder Cats and He-Man; I’m done with all the hard living.
Really, it was great catching up, but you need to let go of all this reliving-the-past, FaceBook bullshit. It’s for the best.
Just tuck me under that old B.U.M Equipment sweatshirt and let me get back to enjoying my retirement in peace.
Ok, fine…I’ll sing “Pour Some Sugar On Me” one more time, but then you’ve got to go.