"What made Ted Cruz so special, among a field of candidates who were absurd in their own right?" your yet-to-be-born children may one day ask. You must tell them two things: his face, and his soul.

Mocking public figures usually reaches a point when it stops being fun, when cold guilt fills our bellies, and we reconcile with the fact that the target of our ire is only human. Rarely are we given a gift like Ted Cruz, a man so eminently despicable that no person could mount a defense of him. He is as despised by the right as he is by the left. In a way, he is a miracle, the single unifier of American conservatism and liberalism.

To celebrate his 13-month run — which has the pass and laughs of an episode of America's Funniest Home Videos — we've assembled an A to Z collection of Ted Cruz's finest moments on the campaign trail.

A is for "Aspirations"

What do you aspire to? Perhaps a satisfying career, pet ownership, or a viral tweet. On January 23rd, 2016, Ted Cruz's 18-year-old self informed the world that he aspired to rule it. Also, to star in a "teen tit film."

B is for "Basketball Ring"

Ted Cruz reminds us that our soul goo is the same no matter if we call Indiana or New York home, but that he does not have soul goo and is, in fact, an artificial intelligence experiment operating with a faulty neural net.

C is for "Carly's Friend"

And...

D is for "Dancing"

Writers at BuzzFeed, an outlet that is content-creating for freedom, somehow convinced Ted Cruz to do a hypothetical audition for The Simpsons and permit them to film it.

This GIF became inescapable, much like the horror of imagining Ted Cruz as president.

E is for "Eating, Kind of"

F is for "Fish Monster"

i used to really identify with the blob fish until the internet pointed out that it looks like ted cruz pic.twitter.com/T6QcYtX9zM — Jennie (@xjenniebean) April 20, 2016

Rough day for Cruz.At last stop a man pulled the "too slow" handshake trick on him then shouted Cruz looked like a "fish monster"@bgittleson — Tom Llamas (@TomLlamasABC) May 2, 2016

Here is a real excerpt from the Wikipedia page for blobfish:

"In September 2013 the blobfish was voted the 'World's Ugliest Animal,' based on photographs of decompressed specimens, and adopted as the mascot of the Ugly Animal Preservation Society, in an initiative 'dedicated to raising the profile of some of Mother Nature's more aesthetically challenged children.'"

Every day I wonder who told Ted Cruz that he should raise his own profile.

G is for "Grandpa Munster"

I don't care what anyone says, Ted Cruz is grandpa Munster. End of story. pic.twitter.com/35JsUiK7aO — Brittney (@IAM_Brittney) April 21, 2016

This actor has been dead for 10 years, so I think this joke is fine.

H is for "Human President"

A website dedicated to convincing the populace that Ted Cruz is a human being seems like something the Cruz campaign should have thought to set up 13 months ago. Alas, this made the rounds on the web only recently.

I is for "Ice Bucket"

J is for "January 20th, 2017"

"2016 is going to be an incredible year." @tedcruz shares his thoughts on the upcoming year. #FoxNews2016https://t.co/GYmARBcrNZ — Fox News (@FoxNews) January 1, 2016

How many drafts do you think there were of this heinous bedtime story, and do you think in any of them it was not totally devastating?

K is for "Kevin"

L is for "Lead Singer"

I'm not saying @tedcruz might be the lead singer of @Stryper. I'm saying he's DEFINITELY the lead singer of Stryper. pic.twitter.com/GvfPKu2blz — Michael Boulerice (@Therealkfm) March 11, 2016

M is for "meiwogmieoapwgie"

meiwogmieoapwgie

N is for "Netflix and Chill"

hey, uh, someone should maybe tell Ted Cruz what that phrase implies pic.twitter.com/g19ibrYjCz — Happy Andy Boyle (@andymboyle) December 28, 2015

This contest turned out to be fake, but it truly is notable how ready we were to believe it was real.

O is for "Ow ow ow oww!"

P is for "Preccccioussss"

Q is for "Queen of Hearts"

R is for "Roommate"

My freshman year college roommate Ted Cruz is going to be elected Senator. In case I hadn't made it clear, he's also a huge asshole. — Craig Mazin (@clmazin) October 26, 2012

One thing Ted Cruz is really good at: uniting people who otherwise disagree about everything else in a total hatred of Ted Cruz. — Craig Mazin (@clmazin) October 16, 2013

Ted Cruz thinks people don't have a right to "stimulate their genitals." I was his college roommate. This would be a new belief of his. — Craig Mazin (@clmazin) April 13, 2016

T is for "Three Toddlers in a Trench Coat"

hi i'm ted cruz, definitely not three toddlers stacked no sir pic.twitter.com/WlRSO1f0MY — nevona (@nevona) March 24, 2015





U is for "Uncle Ted Cruz"

This hug takes places after Ted Cruz tells a very long story about the life and times of the person sitting next to him, his nephew Joey. The footage is taken from a reel of b-roll footage that Cruz' campaign somewhat unwisely published on YouTube as an assist for any PACs that may have wanted to make an advertisement.

A selection from the life and times of Joey:

"You know, my nephew Joey is someone who I've known his entire life. I remember holding Joey when he was a newborn baby—I was 15 when he was born. His mom is my oldest sister, Miriam. Miriam is nine years older than I am. I have two older sisters, Miriam and Roxana, who are a year apart in age. And they're half sisters. They're sisters from my father's first marriage."

V is for "Values comma New York!"

Ted Cruz won zero of the delegates from the state of New York.

W is for "What is on your mouth? That's a booger!"

X is for "X-rated"

Ted Cruz briefly sold merch with this visage on it, but had to stop when it turned out the artist responsible for it was an insane racist. He seemed kind of sad about it.

Y is for "You get a spanking"

"In my household, when a child behaves that way, they get a spanking," @tedcruz told a kid who yelled "you suck!"https://t.co/gj8PgkcATl — Fox News (@FoxNews) May 2, 2016

Z is for "Zodiac Killer"

RIP to Ted's dreams, and to everyone he allegedly murdered.

wow i'm definitely getting murdered aren't I pic.twitter.com/rzlZCc4UPQ — Kaitlyn Tiffany (@kait_tiffany) February 28, 2016

How appropriate this list should come to a natural conclusion with the greatest gift Ted Cruz's campaign gave to America: a concrete answer to one of the nation's most baffling crime mysteries.