July 13: If time travel was possible
Who among us hasn’t wished they could go back in time and have a
do-over? Heck, I’ve probably wasted a good two years of my life wishing
that very thing. Sometimes I think I’d go all the way back to Grade 1 so
I could punch Matt Vermunt in the stomach for commandeering my Creepy
Crawlers set.
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The Creepy Crawlers set was a toy that allowed you to make beetles, centipedes, and all sorts of ugly scary things to make little girls shriek (this was the only reason I wanted it. I wanted to make the girls in my class shriek because they were yucky. Actually, I loved them but six-year-olds think scaring the shit out of someone is a great way to declare your love.)
The Creepy Crawlers set came with four bottles of different coloured goop and three trays, each of which contained a myriad of moulds. How it worked was you found a crawlie you wanted to make, poured the appropriately coloured goop in the mold, put the mould in a makeshift kiln and then you flicked the power switch. In five minutes, the goop would bake and you’d have your very own creepy crawlie toy.
One of the moulds on that tray was an octopus and it was so big that it took a quarter of a bottle of goop just to make one. One day after school, Matthew told me he wanted to make four octopuses (I know the plural of octopus is octopi but we didn’t know that when were six.) I said no. Matthew said yes. We fought about it and somehow, he convinced me that he was entitled to make four octopuses (octopi) because he didn’t have Creepy Crawlers at home and I did and this was unfair.
So we went to my place and I watched as Matt made himself a black octopus and then a green octopus and then a yellow octopus and then a red octopus and then he put the mall on a big light bulb on a lamp in my parents’ living room and then he turned on the lamp and the heat from it melted all the octopuses (octopi) and then Matt asked if he could make four more octopi and I told him no and he told me he wasn’t my friend anymore and then he left and I spent about a half hour scraping coloured gunk off that light bulb and I was furious at Matt for wasting all that goop and I am still mad about it 35 years later.
(Fun fact: My dad got so sicka nd tired of hearing me talk about Creepy Crawlers that he forbade me from ever mentioning them again in his presence.)
So if I could go back to anytime in my life, I probably wouldn’t do Grade 1. I might do the summer after Grade 6, which was the period immediately preceding my loss of innocence. I’d enter Grade 7 with my 41-year-old mind and I would not be a nerd because I would know exactly how to deal with the doofuses in my class. I would not do One Night in Bangkok for the air band competition. When Erik Stabbler goosed me after walking out of English class, I would have turned around and punched him in the head and then kicked him in the balls and then kneed him in the nose hard enough to break it and then I would have spat on him.
I would have marketed myself as a magician and I would have started doing magic shows at 14. I would have snuck out of the house on weekends to busk on Electric Avenue and make all sorts of money. I would have gotten my driver’s license on my 16th birthday. In January of 1990, I would have found a bookie and then bet $5,000 that James “Buster” Douglas would knock out Mike Tyson in Tokyo. I would have used my winnings to buy myself a brand new Corvette (red) and get myself an apartment so I could live by myself before I’d even graduated high school. I would have been a legend,man. A legend.
And more than two decades later,when I again arrived at my early 40s, I wonder if I’d be wishing I could undo my redo.
If I moved out of the house at16 and started fending for myself, I probably wouldn’t be nearly as close to my family as I am right now. I don’t know what my folks say about me when I’m not around, but I bet it’s not: “Oh yes,Steve, our oldest. He hasn’t been home for Christmas in years. This year he’s in Stockholm at some Shriners convention or something –it’s so hard to keep track.”
And would I have my son - my precious baby boy? No guarantees, man. In fact, I'd say the odds are very high against it. If you have kids and you love them, going back in time to redo stuff may as well be a retroactive abortion. No guarantees you'd be with your mate at the exact time again, dude, know what I'm saying?
There is a crappy 1994 Jean Claude Van Damme film (I know - crappy and Jean Claude Van Damme film are redundant) called Timecop where JCVD plays a police officer who stops people from going back in time so they can build better lives for themselves in the present. It's actually a pretty cool premise, even though the film is just an excuse to see JCVD do kickass Martial Arts stuff
Catch me in Breakin'
Time travel isn't possible, actually. I'm convinced it's a metaphysical impossibility. Still, science fiction will never tire of exploring the idea and doing its darnedest to answer the myriad of ethical questions it brings up.
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The Creepy Crawlers set was a toy that allowed you to make beetles, centipedes, and all sorts of ugly scary things to make little girls shriek (this was the only reason I wanted it. I wanted to make the girls in my class shriek because they were yucky. Actually, I loved them but six-year-olds think scaring the shit out of someone is a great way to declare your love.)
The Creepy Crawlers set came with four bottles of different coloured goop and three trays, each of which contained a myriad of moulds. How it worked was you found a crawlie you wanted to make, poured the appropriately coloured goop in the mold, put the mould in a makeshift kiln and then you flicked the power switch. In five minutes, the goop would bake and you’d have your very own creepy crawlie toy.
One of the moulds on that tray was an octopus and it was so big that it took a quarter of a bottle of goop just to make one. One day after school, Matthew told me he wanted to make four octopuses (I know the plural of octopus is octopi but we didn’t know that when were six.) I said no. Matthew said yes. We fought about it and somehow, he convinced me that he was entitled to make four octopuses (octopi) because he didn’t have Creepy Crawlers at home and I did and this was unfair.
So we went to my place and I watched as Matt made himself a black octopus and then a green octopus and then a yellow octopus and then a red octopus and then he put the mall on a big light bulb on a lamp in my parents’ living room and then he turned on the lamp and the heat from it melted all the octopuses (octopi) and then Matt asked if he could make four more octopi and I told him no and he told me he wasn’t my friend anymore and then he left and I spent about a half hour scraping coloured gunk off that light bulb and I was furious at Matt for wasting all that goop and I am still mad about it 35 years later.
(Fun fact: My dad got so sicka nd tired of hearing me talk about Creepy Crawlers that he forbade me from ever mentioning them again in his presence.)
So if I could go back to anytime in my life, I probably wouldn’t do Grade 1. I might do the summer after Grade 6, which was the period immediately preceding my loss of innocence. I’d enter Grade 7 with my 41-year-old mind and I would not be a nerd because I would know exactly how to deal with the doofuses in my class. I would not do One Night in Bangkok for the air band competition. When Erik Stabbler goosed me after walking out of English class, I would have turned around and punched him in the head and then kicked him in the balls and then kneed him in the nose hard enough to break it and then I would have spat on him.
I would have marketed myself as a magician and I would have started doing magic shows at 14. I would have snuck out of the house on weekends to busk on Electric Avenue and make all sorts of money. I would have gotten my driver’s license on my 16th birthday. In January of 1990, I would have found a bookie and then bet $5,000 that James “Buster” Douglas would knock out Mike Tyson in Tokyo. I would have used my winnings to buy myself a brand new Corvette (red) and get myself an apartment so I could live by myself before I’d even graduated high school. I would have been a legend,man. A legend.
And more than two decades later,when I again arrived at my early 40s, I wonder if I’d be wishing I could undo my redo.
If I moved out of the house at16 and started fending for myself, I probably wouldn’t be nearly as close to my family as I am right now. I don’t know what my folks say about me when I’m not around, but I bet it’s not: “Oh yes,Steve, our oldest. He hasn’t been home for Christmas in years. This year he’s in Stockholm at some Shriners convention or something –it’s so hard to keep track.”
And would I have my son - my precious baby boy? No guarantees, man. In fact, I'd say the odds are very high against it. If you have kids and you love them, going back in time to redo stuff may as well be a retroactive abortion. No guarantees you'd be with your mate at the exact time again, dude, know what I'm saying?
There is a crappy 1994 Jean Claude Van Damme film (I know - crappy and Jean Claude Van Damme film are redundant) called Timecop where JCVD plays a police officer who stops people from going back in time so they can build better lives for themselves in the present. It's actually a pretty cool premise, even though the film is just an excuse to see JCVD do kickass Martial Arts stuff
Catch me in Breakin'Time travel isn't possible, actually. I'm convinced it's a metaphysical impossibility. Still, science fiction will never tire of exploring the idea and doing its darnedest to answer the myriad of ethical questions it brings up.
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