Dear Nathaniel,

I know how much you hate it when I use your real name. You long for me to summon you with damsel-in-distress shouts of “Kool-Aid Man!” or “Hey Kool-Aid!” just like those pasty-faced tweens who hang on your every grand entrance, each time you bulldoze the center field wall, or flatten some white picket fence. I must say: as a fount of energy, you never run dry. And I can’t help but grudgingly admire how you never seem to break, you never lose even a single drop.

Wake up one morning and realize that you’ve changed. It’s not just the ravages of time and age: your cranium is now a literal beef patty, encased in a pillow of bun, slathered with onion, ketchup, special sauce. You’re not sure how or why you’ve gotten into this predicament (you almost said pickle) but you know this is something that’s not supposed to happen in life.