WARNING: Explicit OC-related content to follow

Dear DJ the Yard Guy,

It appears your run on our favorite television show is over, and for this I am sad. I spent the better part of this second season making fun of you, your truck and the fact you were a yard guy. I would often add "and have you seen my rake?" to every sentence you said. I bashed you, saying that while Miguel from Passions gets to take bathes with smoking-hot Eva Longoria on Desperate Housewives, you were stuck with Mischa Barton, whose falling down the ladder of attractive females on the show and who once made a movie about talking dolphins.

But as it turns out, you weren't such a bad guy. You dealt with the villainous Julie Cooper-Nichol well, and when things got bad at Jimmy Cooper's farewell party and your poor-choice-for-a-girlfriend got wasted and started calling her mom a slut, you were sure to call her dad, Jimmy, the only Miami Dolphin fan on the show. You didn't bat an eyelash when charges of getting her wasted on tequila were thrown about, and you held your own, like the stout gardener you were.

We also owe to you entirely and exclusively that Ryan has hooked up with Lindsay, and that they didn't try to hook Seth up with Marissa, giving us Alex and the lesbian storyline starting next week that will make all male viewers of the show very, very happy. So a tip of the cap to you, DJ, for making sure neither of our main characters hooked up with Marissa, which would have been boring (with Ryan) and disturbing (with Seth).

So DJ, you're going to fall into the level of characters who were around for short periods of time and then disappeared, ala Holly, Rachel and Theresa, but I hope you get moved into that level of characters who are gone but we will never forget, Anna and Oliver. Granted, DJ, you weren't exceptionally hot, cute, witty and smart, like Anna, or insanely creepy, rich and deranged, like Oliver, but you had class, dammit, and that meant something.

So here's to you, DJ The Yard Guy, for providing two or three lines an episode and an intriguing subplot in your battle to stay with Marissa and absorb the zingers of her mother. You battled them courageously, got your dance on at the SNOC and didn't take the five grand the rest of us would. You'll always be remembered in OC lore.

And congrats to you, because now that you're an ex, you should be in line to nail JuJu by episode 17, and I think that's all any of us could hope for. She is quite a bit hotter than her daughter.

Obsessively yours,
Chris Wilson