The 30th anniversary of "Krusty Gets Busted", Bob's first episode as a major character, is on April 29.

Bob POV, set during "Bobby, It's Cold Outside"

Here I am, driving a car dressed in a Santa Claus suit, with my young archenemy seated beside me. For a moment, I wonder if this is all just a bizarre dream, and that I am still in a padded prison cell, confined to a straitjacket.

Bart is riding shotgun, in both the figurative and literal sense. It seems little Maggie is not the only Simpson who likes guns, though they are not my favourite weapon. They can be a good tool for intimdation, and I did try to fire one on that occasion at Five Corners, I prefer to attempt killing methods that are more...up close and personal. Stabbing, strangulation, that sort of thing.

He is still holding that gun at me, and I don't think he has taken his eyes off of me at all.

"Really, now, Bart, you've been holding that shotgun to my head for half an hour. You can put it down."

Bart shook his head, still not looking away from me.

"No way, Bob. I don't trust you."

I couldn't help but snigger a little at that.

"You obviously trusted me enough to get in the car with me. And you've trusted me before, if only briefly."

Bart rolled his eyes, an action I have always found highly irksome, but I held my tongue.

"In case you've forgotten, Bob, you always go back to trying to kill me. Even when you save my life, you go back to trying to end it. Homer will stop drinking before you stop trying to bump me off."

I clenched my teeth, but I still kept quiet, though I did have an amusing fantasy of crashing the car and seeing the boy get smothered by an airbag.

Bart was right. I knew he was right. The boy lacked book-smarts, but he did have a measure of perceptiveness. I suppose being able to read people is important for practical jokes. The prankster observes his victims not unlike a hunter does with his prey, rooting out peoples' weaknesses to determine the best way to humiliate them. And the boy had successfully humiliated me more than once, and gotten under my skin with little effort on his part. My mind briefly drifts back to when I first me Bart, when he smashed my feet with a mallet and revealed my crime and duplicity on live television...it feels as though that happened a lifetime ago, and yet at the same time, it still feels fresh in my mind, as if it only happened yesterday.

It spoke to the sheer stupidity of the Springfield townsfolk that only a ten-year-old child could always see right through my various attempts to put up a gentlemanly and law-abiding facade. Sometimes I even try to fool myself into thinking I could ever be a good man again. Perhaps Bart knows me better than I know myself, a troubling thought.

But I will never admit that.