A Final Tribute to Joshua Dudley from The Elizabethian
originally published June 22, 2015
As I look back on my life, it is with great sadness that I must announce: I will no longer be there to share it with any of you. No more shall I be available to eat anything for small amounts of money as I did in my younger days, or talk to you uncomfortably during a tense part of a movie. For many of you, I will become much like the final days of George Bush Jr’s presidency… a sad, lingering reminder of the past that you’ll do your very best to ignore but will sometimes be forced to acknowledge it actually happened.
I can only hope that much like the oft derided (but now, often imitated) policies of our former president of these United States, my legacy lives on for years, and I will be remembered fondly as someone who did not have a firm opinion on whether toilet paper rolls should be unraveled forward or backward. I can acknowledge that many of my hackier jokes, such as the one in the last sentence, will not be looked at as visionary, inspiring, and holding up a mirror to our times, but, instead, as someone who was simply weird and out of touch.
Perhaps, you will recognize that life itself seems weird and out of touch these days, and seemingly innocuous news will occupy an uncomfortably large percentage of the modern American cultural oeuvre.
We are in dark times indeed, my friends, and I won’t be there to make you laugh with my willingness to do pretty much anything at any time. You are going to have to prank call Z. Z. Zizzle yourselves. Without me suppressing laughter while my sides hurt beside you, how will you have the fortitude to continue? Z.Z. Zizzle’s wife will probably be confused as to why her green card is expiring or exactly how fast she should be traveling to catch her refrigerator, which is, indeed, running. In case you were wondering, the answer is C) 85 miles per hour when the train is moving south to Washington D.C. with Waldo aboard in disguise. He traded out his iconic red knit cap, polka dot shirt, and glasses for a comfortable Christmas sweater, contacts, and a trucker cap. He was promptly mistaken for a hipster, and someone asked him for help designing their artisanal sponge website. Now, he works for Google and will probably never be found again.
Certainly, without the guiding hand of my wit and wisdom to guide you through your daily lives, where will you find the inspiration to go on? I provide you an authentic self to foist your own worries and concerns upon. Without me, all you will have to look at on Facebook will be cat videos and links to the Blaze.com. For a lot of you, I may be your sole sense of personal connection with the outside world, except for the person who asks you to move your legs while they are vacuuming. My sudden disappearance could force you to seek out other activities, like Bingo, couponing, and visits to your ex-husband’s grave, where you can reminisce about his constant failure to pay child support through the 80’s.
Who will you turn to for mirth and wisdom in your waning years? You can’t watch Matlock forever, you know. You will have to turn to breakfast cereals of childhood for comfort, like Golden Grahams and Cookie Crisp, and attempt to resist inhaling the entire box during a commercial break of The Price is Right, while lamenting the retirement of Bob Barker and bemoaning the fake enthusiasm of Drew Carey.
The world without me sounds pretty bleak, which is why I am happy to say that I am not dead; this has only been a test of the emergency memorial system. In the event of my actual death, you now have a tribute already written, so that’s one less thing to worry about. You can concentrate on taking care of my collection of Wheaties boxes with famous athletes on them. I knew that in the hands of lesser luminaries than myself, my death would be summed up in a square box, describing my survivors and listing the time and location of the funeral. If you want a good tribute written, you have to do it yourself. After all, who knows me better than me? I don’t want someone who’s not me going around with their less capable hands, writing about the unimportant things of my life.
With that said, I hope this inspires you all to go out and live a life worth writing about!
