Sir, I am challenging you to the ultimate event in manly competition. I am challenging you to a bare-knuckled brawl in the back of an open-topped race car, driven by an unashamedly nude Gisele Bündchen, moving at speeds upwards of 120 mph, on a vast plain in the deserts of Arizona, completing its course on a giant-sized ramp that will, shortly after Miss Bündchen ejects and rolls to safety, hurl the vehicle and the two of us within it over the Grand Canyon itself, and into certain destruction and glory.

At the bottom of the canyon, half-dead and mostly on fire, we will claw our way from the smoldering wreckage of the vehicle and begin phase two of this mighty challenge: The Dance of the Cougars. As the car finally bursts into a ball of flaming death, upwards of one hundred bloodthirsty mountain lions will descend upon us, wanting nothing more than to devour our supple flesh after being starved (hint: by me) for nearly thirty days prior to this event. As I crack their skulls with either my skull, or fist, or a nearby rock, I will take a moment to point at your trembling, weeping body and cry, “You are my foe! Do the dance or die!”

After the cougars have been stacked high into an impressive pile of corpses, the third and final phase will begin. Gisele will activate the earthquake machine rigged at the top of the canyon, and our world will begin to tremble. The ground will give way below us, and we will descend into a sub-canyon battle arena, which I have been constructing since the mid 1990’s. A vast circular screen will start playing an ongoing montage of adult films that will not shut off until one of us has perished. A staggering array of fifteen-foot high speakers will begin blasting aggressive heavy metal music, alternating occasionally with a classic rock staple like Boston’s “More Than a Feeling,” creating the ultimate soundtrack to our ultimate contest.

Do you accept? Failure to do so will burn your name permanently onto the pages of history within the chapter on The Greatest Cowards of All Time. Dictionaries and encyclopedias alike will be amended to assure a lengthy description of you sir, with appropriate accompanying pictures, so that posterity may forever come to associate your face with cowardice and shame. Your children, your children’s children, and all of their friends and neighbors will be forced to dig deep within the Earth’s crust and start an underground colony as to avoid walking amongst the many peoples of the world who know that they share blood with one of the greatest sissies of all eternity. Think of them if you are not wise enough to think of yourself.

We shall meet in the desert at noon tomorrow. Ready your face for the fury of my fists, and your ears for the avalanche of my verbal assaults. You shall not live to see the day when I parade through the streets of our hometown, victor and king of all manliness, and your last thoughts will be of defeat and despair. This is your fate and now is the time to ride out and meet it with courage and valor.

What say you, my lesser? Do you accept my challenge, or do you accept infinite humiliation? This is the decision that will define the rest of your life, whether it be honorably shortened or disgracefully immortal.

E-mail me back as soon as you get this. I will be checking my Inbox frequently throughout the rest of the day, save for an hour when I have to pick up my son from camp.

Yours in Passionate Indignation,

− Trevor Trill