I love watching the footage from my Ring Doorbell smart security system and remembering all the fun, small moments of my day.
7:15 A.M.: A newspaper lands on my porch.
8:56 A.M.: A squirrel runs close to my front door.
9:44 A.M.: An Amazon employee arrives with seventy-eight rolls of Charmin toilet paper.
9:45 A.M.: I flag down the employee and tell him that there must be some mistake because I didn’t buy any toilet paper on Amazon—I usually just pick up a few rolls at the grocery store. Then I help him load the boxes back into his van and he leaves.
10:02 A.M.: Neighborhood kids ring my doorbell and sprint away.
10:28 A.M.: Neighborhood kids ring my doorbell and sprint away.
10:57 A.M.: A DHL employee arrives with a notarized letter stating that my house is in escrow, but, thinking that it’s the neighborhood kids again, I open the door and throw a bucket of water on him. He leaves, upset.
12:13 P.M.: Neighborhood kids deposit a flaming bag of poop on my doorstep. Joke’s on them, though, as I’m taking a nap and the fire goes out on its own.
3 P.M.: A portal opens up on my lawn. A future-me steps out, screaming, “Do not trust the youth! Do not trust the youth!” I tell future-me to pipe down. He steps back into the portal, dejected.
4 P.M.: Another portal opens up, and a different future-me steps out and comes onto my porch. When I answer the door, he informs me that he’s a good Samaritan who thought it would be cool to send me a bunch of toilet paper from the future because “You never know when you’ll need it.” His breath stinks of vanilla and Dulcolax, so I ask him to beat it.
5:23 P.M.: One of the neighborhood kids’ parents swings by to ask if her child has been terrorizing me. I say that he has. She apologizes and storms off.
6:08 P.M.: Another future-me comes to my door and says that if I don’t heed his warning, he’ll go further back in time and, by whatever means necessary, stop me from doing “the unforgivable.” He has a gross amount of caramel in his teeth, so I tell him to scram.
7:49 P.M.: The neighborhood kids swing by to say sorry for the pranks earlier. I explain that, in order for it to actually be a prank, someone has to fall for it, and since I hadn’t fallen for it, they’d only attempted practical jokes, not pulled them off. They take this lesson to heart and give me an apology cupcake. I accept it.
8:57 P.M.: A squirrel runs close to my front door.
9:28 P.M.: Several future-mes step out of a portal on my lawn. They all shout, “Don’t eat it!” but I don’t hear them as I’m taking the first noisy bite of my cupcake, and it’s scrumptious—vanilla with small chunks of chocolate and caramel icing. Yum!
9:32 P.M.: I land on my front lawn after being launched out of my bathroom window, powered by an explosive reaction to the cupcake.
9:35 P.M.: Everyone in the neighborhood comes outside and stares at my motionless body.
9:38 P.M.: I sit up. Everyone laughs.
9:39 P.M.: I begin praying to my God.
10:39 P.M.: My God visits me on the lawn. He grants my prayers. I step inside the portal that he’s just opened.
10:58 P.M.: I step out of the portal, glance at my watch, and say to myself, “Whoops! Went forward instead of backward.”
10:55 P.M.: I step out of the portal and rejoice, as I’ve finally got the hang of this thing.
8:39 P.M. (yesterday): I step out of the portal and pull out my phone. I open the Amazon Prime app and order the largest amount of toilet paper allowed. Before stepping back into the portal, I call my real-estate agent and yell, “Sell the house, today! No, no, it’s gotta be today. I don’t care. Any price!” Then I hang up and step back into the portal.
11:48 P.M.: I step out of the portal and see myself and all the other selves I’ve recently encountered. We hug and then everything goes black. Now I find myself floating in nothing. But I can feel it, so it’s more of a nothingness than actual nothing. It’s not pushing back, but I still struggle to move. I realize that I’ve broken the first rule of time travelling as outlined in every movie or book on the subject. I’ve made contact with myself. Occupied the same space at the same time. And I smile. I smile because everything is gone. No more embarrassment. No more destroyed bathroom. And, most beautifully, no more neighborhood kids. And even though I can’t actually see the kids, I know that I have actually pulled off the greatest prank of all. And I smile. I smile forever.
