The Undesirable Element: Bon Voyage, Batmite!

A great era in American history has come to an end.

We stand and salute the departure of one of our finest.

Batmite is returning to India today! So I offer one final plea to him:

Stay in America, Batmite! Who else will I be able to call when I'm watching The Big Bang Theory, and I need someone to explain an obscure reference from a 1978 Green Arrow comic? None of my other (re: normal) friends can have lengthy and heated discussions with me over the nature of a multiverse and whether the Crisis of Infinite Earths was more universe-shattering than the "All Good Things" episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Most importantly, Batmite, how can you leave with only three more weeks until the epic new Star Trek movie premieres!? You grudgingly sit through all six original movies, but this new action-packed geek-gasm isn't worth delaying your global sojurn? I'm sure I can get some of my other (re: normal) friends to go with me, but they won't laugh uproariously and with nerdic glee if Kirk declares, "I've always known that I'll die alone."

And what of the fourth season of The Venture Bros.? Now you'll have to sit through the Bollywood remake with Professor Venturepalli and Brockal Sampsonesh as they sing "Bring My Curry Back to Bombay, Mr. Monarch!" in a colorful showtune.

Once you leave the country, I'll have no one to make my own career failures seem minor by comparison. Once you're back in New Delhi, I can't compare myself to you anymore. Comparing myself to people in other countries has always been off limits, since a giant well-fed American white guy bitching about his globally-compared life failures can incur the disdain and disgust of any starving Somalian who happens to be traipsing by an internet cafe.

Never mind that you have your own house, a cook, a masseuse, and an allowance of rupees that would allow you to own more copies of Bollywood Batman than anyone in India, and with a billion plus people there, that's no meager boast, sir. You already know that you're too American to return to India. Need I remind you of the time that you were conflicted regarding your dinner choices: "Do I want to have tacos for dinner?" you asked yourself. "But I'm also craving chicken wings." You were only temporarily conflicted until you declared, "I think I'll have both!!" That, my brown hetero-ambigious man-friend is an American mindset that has been lovingly cultivated over eight long years. Don't throw all of that hard work away!

Who else will amuse me with their charmingly consistent mispronunciations of the letters "V" and "W"? My other (re: normal) friends are too damned white. Sure, Virgil pronounces "theatre" in an odd sort of way, but somehow that's not nearly as funny.

You, sir, are more American than just about anyone I know. You take more unadulterated pleasure and joy in Taco Bell, Batman, cheese sandwiches, Saturday morning cartoons, and Conan the Barbarian than I ever thought possible. If they have Taco Bells in India, I can't imagine that the food could possibly combine those sublime tastes of the preprocessed and dysentery-inducing while still infusing every bite with spicy goodness. And if that last sentence doesn't immediately make you want to go make one final Taco Bell run, then you're not the man I thought you were.

And for my final plea, I will paraphrase one of your batshit crazy Buffalo friends: Batmite, being friends with you makes me look less racist.

But sadly this world often doesn't work the way we like. If it did, we would have been able to keep that sweet apartment for free and spend our time trolling unsuccessfully for quirky hipster women with unusual tastes in obscure coffee shops (of which Morgantown had maybe three). Your return to India, while not what you wanted, may prove fortuitous. With you in close proximity, that will make poisoning your parents and inheriting their fortune that much easier! Then you can come back to America and do whatever you want... or at least mail me several large checks so that I can do whatever I want.

And when I eventually come around the world to visit, I demand unrestricted access to your cook, masseuse, and whatever concubines that your parents buy for you. (I know that must be one of the perks.)

So I bid you a hearty and heartfelt adieu, Batmite! You best keep in touch with completely superfluous and inappropriate emails and IMs. Use the interweb and other delights of the modern world to send me pictures when the new Star Trek movie eventually premieres in New Delhi. I've always wondered what Hindustanian Trekkies look like.

So now I leave you with a memory from when the sky wasn't just the limit, but it was also a great moment for the fashion world: