Let Me Use The Time Machine

Residents of the small, picturesque town of Humboldt, Maine discover an iridescent orb that grants whoever holds it the ability to travel through time. At a town meeting, the people of Humboldt decide to set up a box outside of Town Hall (next to the gazebo) where folks can submit their request to use the orb. Every Thursday, The Humboldt Orb Team (THOT) will review each submission and approve/deny.

Here are some of the requests…

NOTE: The following have not be checked for spelling or grammar errors or overall coherence/intelligibility.

Hello THOTs,

My plan is to go back to the middle ages and invent computers. Think about how cool it would be to have technology mixed in with the knights and kings and dragons. It’ll be like steampunk except not lame. I don’t know a lot about how computers work but I’m gonna bring my phone with me so that when I get there I can look stuff up. The medieval people are gonna think I’m a wizard or some shit. Oh shit, were wizards just guys who took my phone??? I gotta watch out for Merlins and shit when I get there.

• Sandy R.

Hi. I want to do the thing from that movie where the guy hits his head and then nobody remembers The Beetles so the guy writes all the Beetles songs and becomes famous. Except, instead of hitting my head, I am going to go back to 1957 before the band met and I’m going to fly to England and join the band. I’ve been practicing my accent and my bass and got the haircut and everything. I also have an idea to tweak the name so it is funnier and less bug-centric. Wish me luck, mate! If my plan works, you’ll never see me in this town again!

• Paul MacC.

Hello,

I want to use the orb to go back to visit myself as a child. When I was a kid, I had two obsessions: Jim Carrey movies and Sonic the Hedgehog. Just imagine the look on Kid Me’s face when I tell him about 9/11.

• Nate L.

I also wanna do the thing from that Beatles movie except for the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

• Jeff B.

I just emailed a lady from work and called her Paula instead of Pauline please you gotta let me use the orb to go back to when her parents met and stop her from ever being born.

• Charlotte K.

Beat the shit out of Henry VIII

• Mark R.

You might not remember this at all but you let me use the orb last week and I accidentally did something in the past that mixed up left and right so now one is called the other. Nobody else seems to notice but it’s driving me INSANE. Please let me go back and fix this.

• Ernie M.

Beatles thing.

• John L.

My dog Bumpy got hit by a car two years ago so I wanna go back in time and find the person who invented cars and run them over.

• David M.

Hello Dereck we know you are on the Orb Squad or whatever. When you fill up the trash in the bathroom TAKE THE BAG OUT. It takes literally like 3 seconds. Answer the group chat next time so we don’t have to do passive aggressive shit like this.

• Dereck’s roommates

I just figured out there’s an undo function in gmail so I’m just gonna do that, sorry Paula.

• Charlotte K. again

Back in High School I was quarterback of the football team but I missed the pass that would have won us the championship. It has haunted me ever since and set me on a path of self-destruction. I do not like who I have become and it all goes back to missing the one pass. Please, I would like to use the orb to go back in time and become one of The Beatles.

• Richard S.

THOTs you simply must help me. I just learned that when you are finished cooking pasta you can add the pasta water to your sauce to thicken and bind it, leading to a more rich and complex flavor profile. My whole life I have been pouring my used pasta water into the sink like an idiot. I want to go back to when I was a baby so I can live a life with more rich, complex pasta dishes. Mangia!

• Ezra N.

Okay fine I guess I’ll do what NO ONE else in this town has the guts to do. I’m gonna go back in time and tell Hitler his paintings were good.

• Jenny B.

Hey THOTs, there was a typo on the request I just submitted and I want to use the orb to go back and fix it.

Thnaks!

• Carlos R.

For my bachelorette party the girlies and I want to go back to before the Super Bowl and put a bunch of money on the winning team and get rich and then go to Vegas and lose all the money so it should all even out.

• Kiley P.

I want to eat a diplodocus.

• Kathy K.

I have a plan to stop Travis the Terrible from doing what he did to New Jersey. If successful, we will never have to hear the name Travis the Terrible on the news ever again.

• Mervin J.

Nitpicky, but I painted my living room last week and I’m not loving it. I just want to undo.

• Ben K.

Has anyone tried using the orb to go to the future? I want to see if they ever discover Blackbeard’s treasure. Then I will leave present-day me clues so I can find the treasure.

• Renata M.

I want to bring disco music to the people of New Jersey.

• Travis T.

I want to meet Jesus and tell him that one day Jelly Roll will thank him at the Grammys.

• Lindy P.

It’s me again– DON’T CRUMPLE– hear me out I know I fucked up the time continuum the last time or whatever but I think I figured out a way to fuck my grandpa without any of that stuff happening again.

• Doug

I want to go back to last June when the office went on that team-building hike and when Tina asks me about updating our CRM software to optimize our B2B model, I’m gonna say something hilarious.

• Jeremy J.

I’m going to go back in time to last June when I was on that work hike and hide in the bushes until Jeremy says “I’ll update our CRM software when pigs fly” and then I’m gonna hurl a pig over the trail.

• Tina K.

The people of Miami cannot handle the immense responsibility of the orb. I will travel back in time to that night on the beach when the alien came and presented humanity with the orb and told us to use it for good but it was Spring Break and the college kids gave the alien beers and everyone took turns using the orb to go back in time and prank their step-dads and then the alien said it had to go home and tried to fly away in its spaceship but it had drank too many earth beers and it crashed into the ocean and a whale ate it and then the government seized the orb and used it to do bad stuff. I will go back to that day and take the orb and hide it in the woods near a smaller, nicer, dumber town.

• Gabe P.

After receiving all the requests, The Humboldt Orb Team approved all of them immediately and time imploded and everyone ended up becoming sea turtles which was pretty cool.

THE END… or is it??? Yes!