Orville Wadsworth Finally Gets It Right

He is making the final additions to a new invention. It looks like a small shipping container on the outside, but inside, it has four leather office chairs that were bolted to the floor. Canvas straps for seat belts that were bolted into the floor. Gauges and lights line the inside wall of the container. It wasn’t much to look at, but Orville Wadsworth thought it was his finest invention.

While Willma Wordsworth did think much of it. “Orville, is this going to be another one of your finest inventions, like a robot housekeeper? Remember how that turned out? Your mother, boy, was she pissed. Instead of her time cleaning the house, how much damage did it do? Oh, that poor cat, that look on its face when I picked him up and threw it in the garbage. Your mother was pissed.”

Orville just stood in the opening of his new invention. His baggy plaid button-down shirt and loosely fitting work pants draped his tall, gangly body. He just looked at Willma, and she never minded. This invention will prove her wrong, he thought or hoped. He went back, tinkering around inside.

Even though Willma often made fun of unsuccessful and property damaging inventions, she was attracted to him for some reason she can’t explain. She chose him over two far more successful suiters. One was Tom Davis and the other was Kevin Jones, both of whom had two competing machine parts and tool supply businesses. Orville bought whatever he needed from both businesses and endured their constant snide insults. But Willma would have neither Tom nor Kevin for her heart; for some reason, her heart belongs to her unsuccessful inventor

No one would ever suspect that Orville and Willma were a couple. While Orville is tall and lanky and not very attractive, Willma is petite, slim, and very attractive, with very blue eyes and brown curly hair. She is far more organized and graduated from high school with honors. She is in her second year of college where she is hoping to graduate with a Computer Science Degree. Orville had exceptionally low grades that almost kept him back in his senior year.

“I think she is ready for a test run. She should work.” Orville said with his fingers crossed. Willma just shook her head. “Like your self-driving car that destroyed old Samson’s award-winning plants and just missed his house. I thought your mother was pissed up her plants, she was ready to kill you for what you did old man Samson’s plants. Bye, how did you pay for those plants.” She said with a grin on her face.

As always, he just ignored her digs because he knew that she really loved him, and he loved her too. “Are you coming, Willma? Let’s get this bad boy going.”

“Oh, by the way Orville can I ask you what you this about to be your next disaster?”

“This is a time machine that going to take us into the future.”

She stood there with a stunned look on her face. Then finally, with a serious look on her face, she slowly said. “Orville, do me a favor. If, for some reason, this should work, promise me this will be your last invention.”

He took his seat in front of the controls, and she took the seat next to him. She slowly tightened her makeshift seat belt and slowly made the Sign of the Cross. She mumbled something as she crossed herself.

Orville pushed a bunch of buttons and flipped some switches. Lights started flashing on the makeshift control panel. He pushed some buttons that were on a numeric keypad. She noticed the number 3000 come up on the display. A humming sound came from the control panel, the container started to shake, and smoke started to fill in the container. This lasted for about five minutes. Then the humming noise gradually grew low, and then it went silent.

“Well, here we are in the future. Come on, Willma, let’s see what our future looks like.” She unbuckled her seat belt and slowly got out of her seat, knowing we most likely went nowhere.

Orville pushed open the door, and Willma was right. They were looking out into his backyard. The same house, trees, and shed, but the car did not look like his mother’s car. It was older looking. It was a car she had in the 90s. A blue Dodge Barron.

They walked outside, slowly looking around. The houses on the street all looked the same, but the kids playing in the street looked like themselves, only younger. For some reason, the kids did not see them. Even his own mother did notice them as they walked about two feet in front of her.

Down the street, they continued toward downtown. As people walked past them, Orville and Willma did not notice any difference in clothes. Pretty much everything so far looked the same until they came upon what used to be called a payphone, and just up the corner, there was a newspaper box. Both the payphone and newspaper are in their time in 2024.

They walked up and looked at the date in the newspaper. It was 1997. “Clinton Impeachment Inquiry Proceeds,” blared the headline. “I vaguely remember the President being impeached. We were in grammar school then.” Orville just nodded. He could not believe his time machine had worked.

Some of the shops they saw now have disappeared over time. Like the Radio Shack on the corner across the street from them. Orville grabbed Willma’s hand and gently pulled that direction. Her hand in his hard hand felt good to her. This was the first time he ever touched her. He guided her through the car traffic until, finally, they stood in front of the store’s front window, which displayed Radio Shack’s TRS80. “Even though I used to buy my electronics in every store as a kid, I never purchased their TRS80. I never liked it. I liked Packard Bell better,” he said as he gazed down at the computer.

    “Remember AOL and Yahoo. I think that I used AOL for a little bit before changing over to Yahoo for searching the internet.” Willma said.

“I used Internet Explorer first, then Yahoo. I liked Yahoo very much for browsing. Now it is Google or Chrome mostly.

Willma turned around and saw a small Sears Hardware store across the street. “That is another store that closed up. I remember that everyone thought that the Tru Value hardware store a couple of blocks down the street was going to close because of Sears. Look, that Tru Value is still there, and Sears is gone.”

“Look its Sal Pizzeria. I remember when a slice of pizza was 75 cents when we were kids. Now, what is three dollars a slice.” Orville said as he remembered how good it was. Now not so much, maybe because Sal retired, and his son is running the place.

They almost forgot the blockbuster that was next store to the record store. Blockbuster went out of business when people stopped renting VHS tapes. With people able to download their own music to their notebooks and smartphones, these record stores went out of business.

“Remember having to rewind the VHS tapes before you return it back to Blockbuster? If you did not, they would charge you a fine.” Willma said to Orville.

“Remember how we had our music on cassette tapes that were replaced with CDs? Now, CDs have been replaced with streaming music. “Orville added.

“Yeah, DVDs replaced VHS tapes. You know, my parents still have their old VHS tapes and their old rewinder for them. They also have VHS/CD recorder/player.” Willma said.

“Willma, let’s head back.” She shook her head us. He held her hand back to his time machine.

After returning back to the present, Willma held Orville’s hand, “I enjoyed going in time with you, and for some reason,  this machine did work. But please promise you will give up on any new inventions, please.” Orville just smiled and shook his head yes.