First Posted: 8/28/2014

Dear Chelsea,

I may be the first person to defend your book “My Horizontal Life” in a job interview and get offered the position on the spot!

When asked how I could balance fulfilling the duties of an entertainment reporter while writing a column about my wildest adventures, which have included run-ins with strippers, run-ins with the law and faking my own death, I brought your name up.

“Would you hire Chelsea Handler to be your entertainment reporter?” I asked.

“Well, yeah, of course,” I was told.

“She wrote a book all about laying on her back,” I continued. “She delivers entertainment, conducts interviews and manages to get the job done while being one of the best at what she does. If Chelsea can balance that, so can I – on a smaller scale, of course.”

When you walked away from your talk show last week, millions of people were left feeling as if they had a friend move away.

You don’t know me, but you’ve heard of me, and frankly, we should have been friends by now.

After all, we have almost met countless times.

We spoke two years ago when I interviewed you via satellite for one of the lowest rated news station’s in the country. You asked me how often I had sex. That part never made TV.

We made eye contact when I visited your show and interviewed your show’s writer, comedian Josh Wolf. You walked past the open-glass room we were sitting in and smiled at us. I wanted to approach you, but I was more concentrated on holding in a fart.

When I partied with your roundtable regulars at a couple’s resort in the Pocono’s, I thought getting in with them would get me in with you. I even sent your “Comedians of Chelsea Lately” tour maganager/”Chelsea Lately” audience warm-up guy a drunk text trying to hook him up with my friend. Since the sex never happened, becoming part of your gang never happened.

Now that your show is over, we may never meet.

Just in case your claim to be going to “Netflix” is code for rehab, I want to take a moment and thank you for the lessons you taught me and millions of others over the past seven years.

Thank you for showing me that you can balance a drinking problem while holding down a job.

You taught the word that there is no shame in sleeping your way to the top. #respect

Thank you for proving that being underestimated can work out in your favor.

From watching you, I learned you’re never too old to be a hot mess.

Most importantly, in a world where most people are too competitive to root for anybody other than themselves, you always featured your friends on your show and proved that there is room for everybody to succeed.

I’m sure you have a drinking bender to get back to, or a “Netflix” meeting, so I’ll let you go now.

I won’t say goodbye, though.

Instead, I say, until we almost meet again.

Thanks for the lessons and the laughs,

Justin