I once jumped back to the year 1984 and met myself as a young man.
I don’t know why I did it. I haven’t even done it yet.
I just remember this old man coming up to me and asking me for a smoke.
“I don’t smoke,” I told him.
“That’s ok,” he said. “Neither do I.”
He asked if he could buy me a beer in exchange for picking my brain.
I said sure, but that he was liable to find my brain pretty slim pickins.
(I was a wise ass even back then.)
He ended up buying me more than just one beer so at some point everything became a bit of a blur.
But I do remember he asked me a lot of really weird questions. Not like freaky weird but just stuff you wouldn’t normally think of asking people. Not unless they knew something about themselves that you were trying to remember about yourself. That’s the best way I can describe it anyway.
And the part I’ll never forget is right before he left, he said, “I can’t say I’ll be seeing you, but I can say you’ll be seeing you, a very long time from now.”
Which I remember thinking at the time was sort of a strange thing to say. But this dude was obviously off his rocker.
And the damndest thing of it all is the guy had a freaking Hitler mustache.
Like I’m ever gonna grow a Hitler mustache.
And yet, apparently I am. For some reason.
Hell, for all I know maybe I do it for no other reason than just to go back in time and leave a lasting impression on some young punk me.
Or perhaps I become a Charlie Chaplin or an Oliver Hardy or a Ron Mael impersonator.
Or maybe I’m starring in a production of Springtime For Hitler.
Or maybe toothbrush mustaches become cool again in some crazy post-ironic sort of way.
Or, maybe I somehow actually turn into a genuine bona fide stinking Nazi.
Who knows what could happen in the future?
(Well, I do, but that’s neither here nor there.)
Anyway, I never figured out he was an older time-traveling version of me until I became a time-traveler myself.
At some point after that I finally put two and two together.
Because there was always something that bugged me about that guy.
Not only that he knew my name, but that smug look he wore on his face. Like he had my number and he knew he had my number and he also knew that I didn’t know he had my number but probably suspected it which made it all the more entertaining for him.
Or, maybe it was just that damn Hitler mustache.
Spamrider of the Apocalypse is posted each Sunday.
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