Time Travel Ain’t For The Weak of Lung
I went on a voyage this week. An international trek, no less! I complain about road trips with my family and lament the loss of carefree and exotic jaunts in my life, but that’s because I’ve been limiting my travel paradigm to that which happens aboard planes or upon highways. A few nights ago, on the eve of my birthday, I determined to harness all the brain power experts say we haven’t tapped to suspend time and halt aging. I was hoping to block the formation of a few crow’s feet; I didn’t want to convert to Benjamin Button. I’ve got enough babies in my life. If successful, I’d stop the clock on my aging cells; If not, I’d have mustered enough telekinetic energy to at least bend a spoon or levitate a plate, either one gangbusters at a cocktail party.
But so much more happened. I wandered through a wrinkle in time. I warped space-time as we know it. Don’t ask me to explain the mechanics; I’m not Stephen Hawking even if I mumble a lot and drool on my shirt. In the space of moments, I took a trip back through the ages. I passed decades. I reversed through Centennials. From my window seat in my time capsule, I thought I spied the Grand Canyon, but I realized it was just an era – or was that an epoch? – sliding silently beneath my hurling rocket. I asked the flight attendant for pretzels, but she informed me they have yet to be developed. How about pheasant and a gill of whiskey? Before I could dig in to my grouse, we’d arrived.
London. The Industrial Revolution. The Victorian Era.
Where are my sweatpants? My recent ensembles have teetered on matronly, but when did I start wearing a bun and petticoats? “Excuse me, sir?” I asked a passing gentleman who resembled the mentally unstable who work at Colonial Williamsburg, “Do you have the time?” He pulled out a gold pocket watch. Christ, these historical theme park employees and their authentic props are irritating. He hurried down the lamp-lit street as a shriveled toadstool of a woman cackled in my ear, “You’d best be on your way, Love. There’s work to be done.” With that I was teleported to the inside of an 1800s textile factory. I choked on the black smoke hanging thick in the air as I plucked lace blouses off the line. The soot, a byproduct of the steam and coal burning machinery, invaded my nostrils and my eyes. I pleaded for a window to be opened, but there was no way to ventilate the room and the overseer kept threatening to keep my two pence if I didn’t stop my belly-aching. I’m no math whiz, but I knew that even despite the power of British currency that Taco Bell pays better. My head spun, my eyes teared, and I realized both that I’d not been flown in for Kate and Prince William’s royal wedding and that Thomas Kinkade was full of shit. I fell into a heap upon the rodent feces-covered floor…
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