A lot of people have been writing in asking me about how it was that I ever decided to become a time traveller in the first place.
Actually nobody has ever written in or asked me about anything but I just thought I’d start out by saying something stupid like that since Bob seems to do it all the time.
The truth is that nobody ever “decides” to become a time traveller.
Well, now that I consider it I suppose that somebody at some point had to decide to.
But the way it works now is that all the other time travellers get together and determine that you might be a good candidate to join their ranks, after which you are secretly tested through a serious of strange and unexplained coincidences just so they can watch how you react to them. If after all that they still think you’re alright then they send in a representative to contact you.
My Time Sponsor was named Juanita Sugarloaf.
That wasn’t really her name but that’s what I’m calling her here just to protect her identity and/or memory.
Juanita just showed up next to me in a bar one day while I was drinking off a particularly bad hangover. (A lot of time travellers are drunks for some reason. I guess in that regard we must be a lot like writers. Which makes it go double for me I suppose since I happen to be both.)
Now when I say she just “showed up” I do not mean she just sidled up and sat down beside me at the bar.
I mean she literally appeared right before my eyes sitting at my table right there in the next chair.
“Hello,” I said. “Should I call the waitress back over so you can order a drink?”
“You really need to come with me right now,” was all she replied.
I can’t really tell you any of the rest of the story because it involves secrecy and rituals and secret rituals that I could get in a lot of trouble for spilling.
But we never did have sex if that’s what you’re wondering.
What I can tell you is that before you ever make your first Time Jump you have to be inoculated by these special doctors who never seemed to me to be quite exactly human. You also have to consent to something called an Investigative Life Report (or IRL), which contains detailed information on every major event in your life, up to and including the date and time and manner of your own death.
The reason you need to find out the date of your own demise is because by necessity you have to jump past the end of your own natural lifespan.
Don’t ask me why. I think it has something to do with “Back to the Future Part II”.
You may also recall me previously telling you that as I recalled this was all going to get explained eventually. That was because I had already read this here very entry while I was in The Future. And now here I am actually writing it. After having already read it. After having already written it.
You get the picture. Time travel can get pretty complicated sometimes.
Also, please do not ask me when I am going to die.
Not that it bugs me or that I mind talking about it or anything. I’m just not supposed to discuss such things with Non-Time Travellers (or NTTs), that’s all.
But considering none of my jumps have ever been to any Time before the year 2042 perhaps that narrows it down for you.
Or maybe I just like the 2040s…who can really say?
If you’re wondering why knowing the time and place of my own death doesn’t even bother me then maybe you should go read “Slaughterhouse-Five” by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
Or I could just tell you. It’s because I already know I’m going to be alive after that anyway.
Hell, I already was.
There are other things I could tell you as well.
But I’ve got to go poop now so that’s the end of tonight’s column.
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