50+ Lifestyles

Just Saying…

By Q.C. Jones

The Time Machine

Truthfully, I can’t remember QC Jones’ first exposure to the concept of time machines and time travel. It would be sophisticated and urbane plus demonstrate literary prowess by siting H.G. Wells’ 1895 classic story titled “The Time Machine.” Truth is, the concept was introduced to me by The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show and Mr. Peabody’s Way Back Machine. Somehow, an ongoing fascination with the concept of time travel has driven me to watch every movie even remotely related to the topic.

For the three people on the planet who somehow missed the whole “time machine” concept, allow me to provide a short primer. A time machine is like a car, and in at least two and a half Back to the Future movies, it was a DeLorean car. Why two and a half movies? Back to the Future III is a prime example of Hollywood turning sequel into ZzzQuil. We’ll discuss sequels gone astray in an article someday, but for now, it’s time machines. Here’s how they work.

A person hops into the time machine and sets a big dial to some date in the past or future. After a sprinkle of flighting lights, a dash of twirling, a molecular transformation or two and a pinch of hocus-pocus, they find themself in a different time. For example, one might set the time machine dial for 1492 and step out of the machine just in time to welcome Christopher Columbus and his motley crew to the New World.  Got the concept? Cool, now we can get started with our story.

Imagine it’s the year 3020. QC is enjoying a cocktail (or four) with a few friends from all over the universe (remember, it is the future). Rather than watch Rocky 47, the group decides to do a little time travel. We crowd into my newly acquired Ronco Time Twister and get ready to zoom to a strange and far away time. At that point, someone suggests we visit the year 2020. Since none of us have been there, we set the controls and zip through the time/space continuum to what was called The Quad Cities. The date April 13th, 2020.

It’s a strange time. For some reason, the people of this era rarely leave their homes. When they do venture out, the natives wear ever contrivance of facial covering. Something is strange about their fascination with hands. Most wash hands dozens of times a day; singing the Happy Birthday song a couple of times during the process. When not washing, forms of alcohol-based fluids and jells are applied to hands before social interactions. One member of our group theorizes the hand ritual and alcohol application is a primitive intoxicant and grabs a bottle to test the concept. Nothing happens, intoxicating or no. We chalk it up as a weird ritual.

We observe other cultural oddities. A thin variety of paper, which the natives refer to as “toilet paper” seems to have a high value. We see it meticulously stacked in nearly every domicile. Every time these pre-historic people leave their homes, they search for more “toilet paper.” As they leave the larger buildings, they call grocery stores, they’re seen clutching this valuable commodity. Many exchange information on when and where it can be acquired. Strange, indeed.

Observing further, our little group is fortunate to observe culinary habits of the population. Frozen pizza is a mainstay of many of the diet. Curiously, the provisions are supplemented with what they refer to as “Grandma’s Recipes” odd mixtures including, Grandma’s favorite casserole, home-made bread, pressure cooker favorites and other curiosities.

Furthering our study of the early peoples, we discover a weird custom called Binge Watching. In this practice, years’ worth of serial TV programs is watched in a single block. Hour after hour of the same show. What’s more, we couldn’t help but notice unusual programming based on the lives of people who maintain personal menageries of lions, tigers, and dangerous large animals. This viewing was called The Tiger King.

On the topic of entertainment, we noticed ongoing discussions, sometimes heated, on the family movie choices. Apparently, the humanoid males enjoyed stories of zombies, werewolves, and vampires feasting on the townsfolk, while the women seemed attracted to romantic stories with lots of kissing, touching, and romantic behaviors are known to spread the virus they all seemed to fear.

Conversations between these, to coin a new word, Twenty-ites seemed to always find their way to diseases and virus. One fellow traveler, with great knowledge of alcoholic beverages of the period, noted the virus might be named after Mexico’s Corona Beer. Being an expert on such matters, she informed the rest of our group Corona was available at commonly occurring places called bars. We decided to go to one of these places and look around, but discovered they were closed. Perhaps, this was done to stop the spread of that Corona-virus disease.

After a few hours QC and friends returned to 3020, we discussed our adventure. 2020 didn’t seem like that good of time to visit. Next time trip we’re going to set the controls for QCA in 2021. It will have to be more fun.
Just saying…