A Letter From Alonzo Mourning’s Teddy Bear

Hi everyone! My name is Snugglicious J. Snuggleton! But YOU can call me SNUGGLES! I LOVE it when people call me Snuggles. It means we’re friends! And you can never have too many friends!

Let me tell you about another friend of mine. His name is Alonzo Mourning, but he lets ME call him ‘ZO! Do you know why he lets me call him that? Well, I’ll tell you why. Because we’re FRIENDS! And I know it might seem strange to some people that a big strong basketball player like ‘Zo and a cute cuddly little guy like myself could be friends, but I don’t think it’s weird at all!

Would it be OK if I told you a story? GOOD! I love stories! I used to be friends with a little girl in Toronto named Emily! She was SOOOOO nice! She would hug me every night when she got home from school, and we’d hang out all evening until it was bedtime. But one day Emily saw on the news that a big strong basketball player was really sick. And even though she didn’t know who he was, she felt bad for him, and she thought it would make him feel better if she sent him a cute teddy bear to cheer him up. So she did! And that teddy bear was ME!

It was a little bit strange at first. Zo was really sick, and lots of people were sending him things, but he took one look at me and noticed that the package came from Toronto, and he threw me on the ground and said, “Toronto? Screw Toronto.” And that made me said. But then ‘Zo got better and we became really close friends!

And I got to be friends with some of ‘Zo’s friends, too! One time, ‘Zo had a party, and Antoine Walker drank a whole bunch of Smirnoff Ice and he fell asleep in Alonzo’s bedroom! And he woke up in the middle of the night, and he was crying because he said that “no one understands the mindset of a volume shooter,” and then he picked up ‘Zo’s razor and pretended like he was going to kill himself, but then he hugged me and cried for a little while longer, and everything was OK! He does this twice a week!

But sometimes, I’m not sure if ‘Zo needs me to love him, because he loves himself SOOOOOOOO much! He doesn’t let me sleep in his bed the way Emily used to. Most of the time, I’m just stuffed in box in the bottom of his closet. And there’s a note attached to me that reads, “From a little girl who worships me. Emily. Toronto. Call her in 12 years.”

I do see some crazy things sometimes! In ‘Zo’s bedroom, there are eight different framed MOURNING jerseys all over the wells, and a recording of the Miami Heat announcer saying Zo’s name on a continuous loop. It’s weird!

And sometimes when Alonzo leaves the closet door open, and I can see all the way down into his private gym where he works out! His muscles sure are big! I think it’s strange that all the walls in that room are mirrors, and he always works out naked! And when he goes in there, the first thing he does is grab a bottle of oil and start rubbing it on himself until he’s all shiny. Then sometimes he stands in front of the mirror and he does curls without any clothes on, and he says, “Oh, that’s it, ‘Zo. Look at you. God DAMN you look good, bicep. Mmmm.” And then his thingie gets hard! That’s REALLY weird! I miss Emily when he does that.

But he does LOTS of weird stuff like that! He’s an unusual guy, but we all are, in our own ways! When People Magazine named him one of their 50 Most Beautiful People, he bought 4,000 copies! He wanted to wallpaper the entire house with them, but his wife wouldn’t let him. But once or twice a week, he gets out one of those magazines and then he takes his clothes off and gets like he does when he’s doing nude curls, and, well, let’s just say there’s a reason I have this raincoat on! I REALLY miss Emily when he does that!

I should go now. Have a great day everyone! TTYL! CYA!