There once was a boy named Ralph. He hated the world. Why? You ask. Well, nobody really knows, including himself. Unable to supply you with this answer, I will tell you about little Ralph, in hopes that you might understand him a bit better.

Ralph came from a family of one. Although he technically had three brothers, a sister, and two "loving" parents, Ralph had been disowned at the tender age of two and a half. Ralph didn't mind. He (understandably) hated his parents. They had, after all, named him Ralph. You would hate them, too.

As Ralph grew older, he began to notice two very interesting things about himself. 1) He started convulsing violently whenever he ate spaghetti (ah yes, a good trick. I tried it myself once, but my mother wasn't convinced and thus I was doomed to eat spaghetti once a week until the day that I die. or the day I move out, but with this steady pasta intake, I am not quite sure which will come first) and 2) he had an undying love for romance novels.

For many years, Ralph lived in blissful ignorance. He was not aware that he was different (although he was a bit suspicious when he noticed that other children did not, in fact, start to roll around on the floor when the lunch ladies served up. you guessed it. spaghetti). Then one fine Saturday morning, something happened that would change Ralph's life forever.

On this fateful day, Ralph (15 years old now) was walking his pet squirrel (Muffin). As he started to cross the hot summer street, Ralph stopped to examine a worm on the road. It appeared to be dead. Ralph hated dead things. as a matter of fact, when his grandmother had died two years ago, Ralph had been only too happy to slam the coffin shut at the funeral. and it wasn't as if he had liked her anyways. She had taken his pet muffin away (which he later named his squirrel after) when it had started to grow moldy. Although she had promised to buy him a new one, it had never quite been the same after that.

Anyways, as Ralph picked up the dead worm to give it a proper burial (in a garbage can. as I said, he hated dead things and he didn't like such things polluting the beautiful city streets) he forgot about poor old Muffin, and when he looked up a minute later, it had met its demise (I won't go into the details, but let me just say, it was ugly). As he mourned the loss, he carefully planned on how to dispose of Muffin's unsightly shell.

Notice that I started a new paragraph. This is to signify that he mourned for quite some time. For five whole hours, Ralph wandered the city streets with a dead squirrel in his arms, and a look on his face that spoke of mixed feelings. sadness (because of the loss of Muffin) and disgust (at the fact that he was cradling a thing no longer living . he could not yet bear to refer to Muffin as dead, it was such an ugly word... in his arms). As he wandered, Ralph was oblivious to the fact that people were looking at him in a rather odd fashion.

Five hours later, Ralph was suddenly thrust into darkness. He clutched poor Muffin to his chest, whispering, "They can't take you from me, Muffy. they can't!!" What Ralph didn't realize was that a blanket had been shoved over his head, he had been tied up, put into a van, taken to an insane asylum and that they had, indeed, taken Muffin from him.

For two whole years, Ralph was kept in the asylum, and during this time, he developed a plan. He took inventory of his good qualities. He found two that stood out above the rest. 1) He was one hell of a hottie, especially when he smiled (although they were not allowed mirrors in the asylum, what with the sharp object rule, Ralph remembered this about himself) and 2) He was a relatively good actor.

Although Ralph was somewhat psychotic, he had a good head on his shoulders (in more ways than one) and he realized how to use these good qualities to his advantage. Two problems still remained, though. 1) Nobody would accept somebody with a name like Ralph and 2) Nobody would accept somebody with a record of having been in the insane asylum. Ralph cured himself of these problems in one fell swoop. He changed his identity. He suddenly became "Patrick". He pretended to love a girl named Kat, but, well, as we know, Ralph (or should I say Patrick) was a very good liar (or should I say actor).