Timely Toast

Wow, this has been a crazy week. And I mean crazy! Not ‘Aunt Jemimah stopped by unexpectedly to visit’ crazy. Not even ‘fists started flying at our last book club when Uncle Henry said that Gary Larsen was a better writer than Jane Austin’ crazy, although that was pretty wild. No, this week was ‘time space continuum got all wacked up’ crazy, and somehow I got involved in trying to clean the whole thing up. But I’m getting ahead of myself now. Let me tell you how it all started.

Exactly one week ago today (although if we’re being honest, it’s been hard to track that accurately), a meteor struck the earth. It was glowing green and huge and seemed like something right out of a movie. Luckily it landed in the middle of nowhere, so it didn’t kill anyone, but it did mess with the rotation of the Earth. I think. I’m not actually sure on the details of how it did what it did, but either way, it completely screwed up time. Yeah, you heard me right. It messed up time itself. I didn’t even know that was possible a week ago, yet here we are.

All of the sudden things started taking way longer or way shorter than they should have. A movie I went to only took about 10 minutes to watch. My drive home took 5 hours, and I only live a half mile away from the theater. It’s kind of hard to explain it because I don’t really understand it myself, but it is what it is. Time was not moving consistently anymore.

At first it was kind of cool, and sometimes you’d get lucky, like when your workday felt like 45 minutes and the rest of the day felt like 2 days. But other times it backfired, and you’d end up being at the dentist for hours and hours. The scientists were going nuts trying to figure it all out, but they weren’t really getting anywhere. But hey, that’s academia for you. I’m sure we’ll understand it in a few years.

What really blew my mind though was when people online started hating on Albert Einstein for understanding time all wrong. It was ridiculous to blame him because you know who else understood time wrong? Literally everyone else on the entire planet! But internet people will be internet people no matter what’s going on, we already learned that in 2020. At least the memes have been nice.

Anyway, getting back to my story, it all became unbearable this morning when I was making my morning toast. I have toast with peanut butter every single day for breakfast. I love it. I have to have it. But it was taking forever! I stood by that toaster for two hours, and every time I checked it the bread was still cold! Heck, it’s probably still toasting right now. But in that moment, standing there by my toaster without my morning toast, I decided I needed to do something to set this right.

I used to work part time at an old antique shop close to my house, so I drove over there and started looking through some of the older items in the back room that most people ignore. I had heard a rumor of a genie lamp being there, but I had never found it before. I was determined to find it today though, I needed to fix things. So, I looked and looked and looked, but there was no genie lamp to be found. Just an old, rusty, camping lamp. But hey, I didn’t come all the way over here not to give it a try, so I picked it up, rubbed it, and voila! A genie popped out!

Unexpectedly, the genie looked like a miner from the old west. It fit the vibe of the lamp perfectly, but I was imagining more of a genie from Aladdin sort of vibe. I guess the artist for Aladdin never saw a real genie. You can’t really blame him, they seem to be pretty rare, this was the first one I’d ever seen. Still, I was caught off guard by how human he looked, so I didn’t say anything at first.

He waited for a minute, and then said, “Well? Is there something I can help you with?”

I said, “Are you a genie?”

He said, “Yes.”

I said, “Ok, I just wanted to make sure. Do I get three wishes?”

He said, “Yes.”

I said, “Ok, that’s what I thought. You know, I kind of figured you’d explain the rules for me. That’s what the genie in Aladdin did.”

He then went on a long lecture about how much he hated being compared to that genie and how inaccurate it was and blah blah blah. He asked how I would feel if the only human anyone had ever seen was Chris Hemsworth on tv, and then they expected me to have a body like that. I figured that was a fair point, so I apologized and asked if we could get back to the wishes.

“Yes, go ahead.” He said, still looking upset with me.

“Ok,” I replied. “I wish time was normal again!”

He smiled. “As you wish.”

I immediately got a ding on my phone, and when I looked at it I saw a notification from my news app. It said, “Introducing our new normal, a world with wacky time.” I looked back up at the genie. “Are you serious?” I said. “A new normal? That’s how you answer my wish?”

He shrugged his shoulders. “Gotta be more specific, kid.”

I’d always heard that genies would try to throw off your wish if you weren’t specific with it. I’d also heard that genies were big blue guys with no legs. It was interesting to see what was true and what wasn’t. I wanna warn you though, if you ever get the chance to make wishes to a genie, be careful. They’re sneaky. At least, this one was.

Luckily, I wasn’t about to be fooled again. “Fine, let’s go to the source. I wish to talk with Father Time.”

The genie smiled even bigger this time. “Your wish is my command.”

Everything around me slowly melted away, and then I appeared in some greenhouse, facing an old man covered in herbs. It was very strange, but I wasn’t going to question the gardening habits of Father Time himself.

“Hello,” I said, “Are you Father Time?”

“Um, yes,” he replied, caught off guard with me appearing right there. “I’m Father Thyme. Can I help you?”

“Yes! Time is all screwed up, and I need you to fix it!”

“Excuse me?” He said. “What do you mean thyme is all screwed up? Last I checked it was doing just fine.”

“What!? It’s going crazy! How have you not seen? Time is literally all over the place right now.”

“It is?” he said excitedly. “That’s good news! I’m sick and tired of it only being used in Italian Seasoning. I’m glad it’s getting out there more!”

“What on earth are you talking about?” I said.

“I’m talking about thyme.” He replied.

“Are you? Because as far as I know time has nothing to do with Italian Seasoning.”

“Excuse me!?” He said, clearly offended. “I’ll have you know that thyme is the second ingredient in most Italian Seasoning recipes. Not even rosemary can claim that!”

That’s when it all clicked for me. I dropped my face into my hands and shook my head. “Oh my gosh, I don’t have time for this.”

“You don’t have thyme?” Father Thyme asked. “Do you need some?” He held out a hand of seasoning. At least he seemed to be the forgiving type, already over my accidental insult.

“Sorry Father Thyme” I said, turning down his offer. “There’s been a mistake. I thought you were Father Time, spelled T-I-M-E. Not Father Thyme, as in the herbs.”

“Oh” he replied, looking a little sad. “You know, this isn’t the first time this has happened. You’d think I’d figure it out sooner, but every time I get so excited that a fan of thyme wants to visit with me that I completely forget about the other Father Time.”

“That’s alright, no worries.” I said. Things were getting a little awkward now. “Well, I’d best be on my way! Good luck with everything!”

“You too!” he said, as I started to walk out of his greenhouse. “And don’t be a stranger! Come back any time! As in, time time, not thyme thyme. Ooh, goodness, this is confusing.”

Once I was out, I rubbed my genie lamp again, and the old prospector appeared once more. “Alright,” I said firmly. “This time I want to see Father Time as in the guy with the clocks. Time spelled T-I-M-E. Got it?”

The genie nodded. He still seemed amused about my first two failed wishes, but he complied this time and sent me to the right person. And that’s when I met you.

***

Father Time looked at me with interest. “Wow, that was quite the story.” He said. “Did you take a breath even once that whole time? I almost cut in earlier, but I honestly didn’t know how to stop you.”

“Oh, sorry about that.” I said, realizing that I had been talking non-stop for the past 10 minutes or so.

“To sum up,” he said, “you want me to fix time so that you can have your morning toast. Is that correct?”

“Um, yeah, that pretty much sums it up.” I replied. “And so, you know, everything else in life can go back to normal. But if all you can fix is my toaster then that’s fine too.”

He chuckled at me. “Well kid, I’m glad you came all this way to get things sorted out, but I don’t know what to tell you. I already fixed it all last night.”

“That’s not possible.” I said, confused. “I got a notification this morning introducing a ‘new normal’ with wacky time.”

He shrugged his shoulders. “They wrote that article two days ago. You just got the notification today.”

“But what about my toast!” I yelled, getting frustrated. “I waited two hours for it, and it was still cold!”

“Hmmm,” he said, seemingly thinking about it. “Well, in my experience, toasters work better if you plug them in.”

I blinked. “You mean my toaster was just unplugged?”

Father Time nodded with a smile.

“And time has been functioning normally all day today?’

He nodded again. “That’s right.”

“Oh. Well, in that case, can you send me back home? I’d like to have my toast now.”

Father Time chuckled once more, and then waved his hands magically to send me back home. Before I knew it, I was standing by my toaster in my kitchen, the bread still in the unplugged machine. I plugged it in, pushed down the toasting lever, and then went and grabbed my jar of peanut butter. What a great ending to such a strange day!