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dafremen
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The freak from NY to me: "So the truth is, (and this is where everyone thinks I'm crazy, mind you), that I'm from another time and travelled back in time to be here with you people."
"In fact", he went on, "We've had this same conversation 5 times. This is the 6th time we're having it."
I to the Freak: "Hold on."
I grab a pen and jot something down quickly, then fold the paper in quarters. He pretends not to look surprised. (Or maybe he's not pretending. Who knows?)
"Ok, first off, it's not that I don't believe you about the time travel thing. That's not really my issue with this conversation. My issue with this conversation is that it's asking me to believe that some time down the road, our society wasted a great deal of time, resources and human lives in the pursuit of time travel."
"Huh?" This time the Freak looks a bit puzzled.
At this point, I'm not sure where I'm going with this, but then again, that's really the only way to handle someone like this who's got too much time on his hands to think of all of the angles. You've got to be able to think on your feet; no you've got to be able to think on your HANDS as fast as THEY can think on their feet.
"Look. I just wrote something down on this piece of paper, and I'm about to ask you to open it up. But before I do that, I'm going to ask you to tell me what is written there."
The Freak has an explanation for his forthcoming failure to know and gets ready to send forth with it, but I continue thusly before he can start:
"Now either you are going to know. Or you are not going to know what is written on this piece of paper. If you know what is written on this piece of paper then it doesn't matter how you change anything, someone else can always come along and undo what you've done, turning your knowledge into non-knowledge, or flipping your future upside down. It's as good as not being able to change anything. Pointless." The logic was iffy, but he was buying it. Where'd that come from? Inner grin.
"And if you DON'T know what's on this piece of paper it means that you can't remember or record the things you observe or change. The first time, obviously you would have had to get it wrong. Perhaps the second? But eventually around the 3th, if you were ever going to get it, you would have thought to record it. But apparently you didn't if you still don't know the answer. And so again, pointless."
The Freak's jaw dropped. My kid's jaw dropped. I think my jaw dropped a bit, but I quickly hid it.
"Very nice to have your very special visitation in our time and all Mr. Time Traveller and I don't mean to be rude. But do you mind if we all talk about something useful like pot, politics, philosophy or fishing?"
He chose fishing..and pot.
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120225
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