Tales From the Future, By Way of the Past!

At some point, I had to see the future. I mean, what good is a time machine if the only thing I use it for is trying to rewrite history and exploiting hippies? No, I would go to the future, where all ills are cured, and return home to become the reincarnation of Edgar Cayce, rattling off mysterious cures while accessing the Akashic Records in trance. Besides, I had run out of excuses for turning down LSD without looking like a square. Good-bye, 1960s!

I set my sites on 2040. I figured at least one of the fifty miracle cures for cancer I’d read about would have cleared the FDA by then. Also, I really wanted to see Phantasm V already.

Would you believe that my plan was nearly foiled by George Foreman?

Oh, I kid. We all know that George didn’t really invent the awesome grill that bears his name. And the folding grill that Wendy’s used to replace their oh-so-greasy flat grills probably can’t be called a Foreman Grill because of some kind of patent loophole. Nonetheless, I blame George.

By 2040, every Wendy’s has one of those non-greasy grill presses that make accessing the Demi-Plane of Grease nearly impossible. I was extremely pissed considering how hard it was to find a Wendy’s at all (that Demolition Man bullshit about Taco Bell–totally came to pass). Thus, unable to construct the Classic Triple Puzzlebox, I was forced to access the lower levels of hell using the Baconator Sephirot.

Lucifer Goatsex Morningstar! Do not do that ever, no matter what sort of instructions my past self puts in the Cookbook. It was a great idea at the time, but you do not want to run into Baphomet. The dude is still seriously pissed that the Templars never finished constructing the Portico Diablo.

So yeah, by 2040, Europe can cure cancer, but good luck paying for it in America, where you have the freedom to die (God bless us!). Medical tourism becomes something of an epidemic, and travel is horribly restricted. And England? Totally not fascist at all, Alan Moore.

I left my unfuelable time machine in Cleveland, Ohio in 2040 and emerged, stinking of brimstone, through a tiny portal into 1990 with a backpack full of energy crystals. Oh, New Agers, we’re going to have the best decade ever!