Girl Scout Time Machine
“Please don’t shoot me, Mister, I’m just trying to sell some cookies!”
The other day, three Girl Scouts knocked on my front door. I grabbed my AR-15, opened the door, and there they were in their brown uniforms carrying boxes full of what I assumed was some dangerous material.
I would find out later that I was right. The boxes contained small discs loaded with sugar and probably enough carcinogens to kill a Chicago River box turtle:
As gently as I could, I told them that the year is 2024 and nobody goes door to door anymore unless they’re prepared for a gunfight.
That ushered forth their first shocking response. “Oh,” one of them said, “We’re from 1967. We’re part of Tommy Teller’s science fair experiment. He sent us to the future. This is how we sell cookies in our time.”
“Yeah,” said another. “We didn’t think his stupid time machine would work but it did. Why do you have that big army gun?”
“Everybody has big guns these days,” I responded happily. “Now scoot. This is a stand-your-ground state.” They all looked perplexed.
“Well, how are we gonna sell our cookies?” another girl innocently asked.
“Sit in front of a store like all the other Girl Scouts do,” I responded.
“But that doesn’t make any sense,” said one of them. “Don’t stores sell their own cookies in 2024?”
“Yeah,” said another. “How can we compete with Chips Ahoy and Fig Newtons?”
“What about vacuum cleaners?” asked another. “How do people in 2024 buy vacuum cleaners if they can’t go door to door?”
One of the girls peered into my house and scrunched her face. “I don’t think they have vacuum cleaners in 2024.”
“I guess they have lots of beer, though,” said another, who also peered into my darkened man cave.
“Really, now, skedaddle!” I fired some warning shots into my neighbor’s Tesla, which turned into a big smoking battery from the assault. I hate my neighbor. He’s from California.
“Oh my God, what is that thing?” one of the girls exclaimed as she looked at my rifle.
“Language, Betsy,” said another.
“But it’s like, a machine gun!” said the third girl, clearly alarmed.
“Do you have that gun because everybody’s gay now?” asked Betsy. “One of your neighbors has the same kind of gun and he said that everyone’s gay and all the white people are getting replaced.”
“Yeah like that scary movie, Invasion of the Body Snatchers!” said girl number three.
(Checks notes: Whoops, that’s the second version of Body Snatchers, not the 1960s version. The second version was a prescient tale about what will happen when half the country has been MAGAfied.)
“Was that the guy who was burning the books in his front yard?” asked the girl who had corrected her.
“No, that was the guy with the big smoke stacks sticking up from the bed of his pickup truck and all the weird slogans all over the fenders and doors about stealing elections,” said Betsy.
“And a confederate flag,” said the third girl. “And the F word!”
“Oh yeah,” said the corrector. “The one who talked about how bathrooms are scary places and had the bumper sticker that said, ‘My high school student beat up your high school student.’”
At that, I saw three teenage boys wearing white shirts and blue ties bounding down the street toward the girls, and, therefore, my house.
“Look out!” one of the boys cried out as he ran closer.
The girls didn’t move. They just watched the boys run toward them. “That’s Ben. He’s kind of dramatic,” said Betsy to me.
“Wait,” I said, “How many of you from this time machine are here?”
“Just us and them. They’re from the school band. They’re selling chocolate bars.”
One of the girls giggled. “I guess they need more tubas!”
“Be nice” said Betsy.
When they reached me, one of the boys breathlessly said, “Please don’t shoot us, sir, we’re just trying to sell chocolate bars.”
“Wait, that’s not what my Substack subheadline is gonna say,” I snapped. “Go on,” I said, waving my gun. “Git!”
They all looked exhausted.
“Where are the rest of you?” asked one of the girls.
“We lost five men,” said one of the boys.
“Men? You’re boys,” I said.
“We’re men now,” he responded. “We’re battle-tested thanks to the lunatics of your century.”
“Yeah,” said another. “Every single house we knocked on was answered by someone with a gun, most of them shooting first and asking questions — not.”
“Yeah,” said another of the boys. “What kind of society is this? I can’t sell these door to door?” He pulled a long rectangular chocolate bar wrapped in white paper from a little box with a handle on it.
“Wait,” said one of the girls. “You lost five guys?”
“Yep,” said the first boy. “Some guy just opened up on us.”
“Just like John Wick,” said another boy.
“If you’re from 1967, how do you know about John Wick?” I asked, feeling a little annoyed.
“No, no,” said the first boy. “The guy with the gun was saying that as he was shooting! ‘Just like John Wick!’ he said. “And he had a big smile on his face.”
“Dammit!” I said. I had forgotten to pause my John Wick 4 movie. I could hear a lot of gunfire in my living room, although I couldn’t be sure that it wasn’t my girlfriend, Candy, shooting at squirrel nests in the trees in the backyard with her AR.
“Would you like to buy one, sir?” asked the boy holding the chocolate bar.
“Public school or private?” I asked. There was no way I was going to help fund some public commie school institution.
Before he could answer, two young bald men wearing white robes splattered with what looked like ketchup were running toward us.
“Hare Krishna,” they said together as they bowed upon their arrival. “We were three, and now we are two.” He seemed very calm.
“I thought you said it was just you and the chocolate boys,” I said accusingly to the girls. They all shrugged as if set off by the same timer.
“Are you also from 1967?” I asked the Krishnas.
“I do not know precisely how many lives I have had,” said one of them. “But please enjoy these reading materials with no obligation, and I ask that you not shoot us like your neighbor did.”
“Do you want a chocolate bar?” asked one of the boys.
“Cookies?” asked one of the girls.
The Krishnas shook their heads in unison.
“Let us pray for these people in this strange year of 2024, instead,” said one of them.
I guess they did. I just slammed my door in disgust and returned to my John Wick flick. But not before I snatched a box of yummy, sugary cookies, gun pointed.
Thank you for reading. In case you didn’t guess, this was entirely a work of fiction. I have never owned, nor will I ever own, an AR-15.
I am also not aware of any working time machine technology other than those associated with hot tubs.
