Rance checks in… or has been checked in involuntarily… from an asylum for the severely mentally disturbed. His physician grappled with the Dx; at first he was suspecting multiple personalities, animal-related disassociative disorders, and (possibly) schizophrenia.

This changed when Rance received a supervised visit from one of the “imaginary” characters. Medication was reduced, increased, and reduced again. Finally, a breakthrough:

12/5 Evening. Patient finally awoke. For the first time in several weeks, he was calm and lucid, answered only to the name on his medical records and driver’s license, and purported to be no one else. Patient also proposed to his underpaid and heavily-in-debt psychiatrist (which is to say, alas, myself) that he give me an automobile, a Dodge Viper, in exchange for my permitting him to transmit a brief note to Rubber Duckie and the rest of his coterie. Of course, any such a barter would be in flagrant violation of the rules.

12/6 I am duty-bound to record that an acquaintance informed me of the cash value of the Dodge Viper, lest anyone mistake my motivation: I determined the Viper served Patient not as transportation so much as a sparkling red means of avoidance in terms of confronting his insecurities. Accordingly, I thought it best to let him give the automobile to me. To enable him to feel rewarded by the step, I deliver herewith his note, transcribed from Patient’s writing in non-injurious crayon:

Dear Friends:

Happy Hanukkah, Christmas, Thanksgiving (belatedly (sorry)), etc. I miss you lots and wish you were here–and not just so you could spring me.

Later,

R

It’s nice to hear from Rance after a long hiatus; I guess he didn’t succumb to bad shrimp, wacky starlets, or too heavy a courseload at University of Toledo Community Tech
after all.

I realize that all sorts of people claim to have ID’d Rance, but he’ll always be that uber-bright kid working at Fatburger and living in his parents’ Toledo basement to me.