The Wabasso Triangle
Episode 7½
The Time Machine
This month, our Defective Detective has a science lesson… tough going for someone who thinks ‘Trigonometry’ is the study of Roy Roger’s horse.
It should not have happened, but one thing is certain: it did happen. Defying all known laws of physics, plus the Starboard Tack Rule and not forgetting the “Only to be Removed by Consumer” tags, the Wabasso Triangle has struck again.
Anthony Chianti, Licensed Private Eye and Indian River Community Pasta Detective, reporting:
It was Tuesday, and as if a long day at the office with three terminal pasticides and a visit from Retarded Ravioli wasn’t bad enough, I was stuck on 15 Down. To make things worse, when I got home, Art was at it again. It was three months since the lisping green-crested stowaway had hitched a ride back from the mothership on board my Buick Testudo and installed himself in the attic…
“Hi, Art, what’s up?”
“Look like ceiling tiles to me, Earthling. Why you ask?”
“Er… What is that noise?”
“It called ‘Plum Blossoms in the Snow’… ”
“I don’t care what it’s called, turn it off – I don’t like alien music.”
“It not alien muthic, it Chinese opera. You said try Country Muthic.”
“That’s not Country Music – Country is, like… Garth, Hank, Reba, you know, Boot Scoot Boogie… “
“China is wrong country? You forgot to specify country?
“Er, let's try American Country.”
“Anyway, I like muthic while I work… ”
“You think someone plucking a birdcage is music?”
“Philistine – it better than mitherable rubbish you listen to – sound like Leonard Cohen on Lithium.”
“Did you say ‘work’? You’re going to make dinner?” I enquired, knowing how difficult it is to do a crossword on an empty stomach.
“Nope, you make dinner. Me show you how to make simple home-made Temporal Shift Reactor,” Art replied.
“Tyong ping,” the stereo interjected.
“It thimple to make, podner, I show you. First we need to clean off primary ingethtion station… “
“Ingestion station?”
“Why you repeat everything I say?” He tipped the dining table over until everything crashed on the floor, “Now we need thoggy thpirella…”
“Soggy Spirella? How about some cooked-to-perfection Mostaccioli?”
“Twang, ping-pong?” the stereo suggested.
“Listen, thmarty-pants, you think you famous TV chef like Walter Kronkite? You want me show you how to make this or else I just go watch TV and learn more Merican?”
“OK, soggy spirellas coming right up… how much?” I said, trying to sound enthusiastic.
“Are you congenitally thtupid or just incapable of listening? Is ‘thpirella’ not singular? We make one little machine, need only the one – Dagnabbit, Podner!”
“Dagnabbit, Podner? Exactly what have you been watching? Or is there too much chlorophyll in your hair?”
“Me learn Merican from TV Westerns – ‘White man thpeak with fork tongue’ – ‘Head ‘em off at the path’ – ‘Git those doggith rolling’ – ‘Not back in three days send a pothee’ – ‘I don’t know who that masked stranger ith, but I’d sure like to say thank you... ' Pretty good, huh?”
“Er… OK, cowboy, one soggy spirella coming right up!” I threw a lone spiral in a mug with an inch of water and put it in the microwave for eight minutes – criminal behavior for a Community Pasta Detective, but all in the cause of science.
Ten twanging minutes later:
“OK, now, how it works, pay attention. This is input end on spirella. Here we put broadband radiation. Low frequencies go through wet pasta, high frequencies travel outside, around edge of helix… but get to other end at same time. Are you with me, Amigo?”
“Er?”
“Good, now come interesting part: Real time defined, not by elapsed time, but by delta of both speeds. So, we sum this, invert result, and iptho fatso, backwards time come out here…” He traced the energy path through the pasta, and then through a moldy sneaker, two rubber bands and my new hair dryer, which was stuck in a broken teapot.
“Hey, what are you doing with my new hair dryer?”
“It’s OK, I just borrow hairdryer. Anyway, thperiment ready. Put finger here, Paleface.”
I put my finger near to the spout, just where he said… and then, nothing.
“Should something be happening?”
“You suppothed to say, “Ready, Podner,” and then I switch it on…”
“OK. Ready!”
“And?”
“OK… Ready, Podner!”
“Wagonth roll… !”
Nothing happened. Then, slowly at first, the faded wallpaper became brighter, then brand new; then drywall, studs, construction workers – the house was only a concrete bed, then faster: trees, pioneers, Spanish, trees, Indians, trees, dinosaurs, then an almighty crash and I was back in the kitchen.
Art was standing next to me with a large hammer and my new hairdryer was in pieces. He was not amused:
“You suppothed to pull out finger! You lucky I was here to thave your life!”
“But you didn’t say anything about pulling out finger…”
“It’s my fault that Earthling doesn’t know how to work Time Machine? If Wishbone was here he sort out you varmints… "
“How am I supposed to know if you don’t tell me?”
“I not listening…” Art put his fingers in his ears, “Warble, warble, I hear nothing... Git those doggith rolling… ”
I returned to the kitchen and the Mostaccioli. Some olive oil, garlic, and soon another culinary masterpiece was ready.
“While you making dinner I bought some stocks… sarthaparilla is good… "
“Sarsaparilla? That’s a ’79 Gewürztraminer.”
“It ith? Then why they put it in a screw-top bottle? Anyway, broker was very nice, Mr. Levitski at PumpnDump Securities…”
“Are you crazy? What did they talk you into?”
“…I buy stock in crummy little typewriter company called IBM…”
“IBM? But high-tech is dead…”
“No, Thilly, I buy stock in 1937 after I repair time machine. Cost me 7 cents. This pasta pretty doggone good, podner.”
“You went back to 1937 and bought stock?”
“Sure, then in 1983 dump it for Microthoft. Also put 3 pennies in a savings account in 1762, juth for fun. So we sitting pretty. But this need more garlic…”
“You own some Microsoft?” I looked up from the crossword.
“Not any more… in July 2001 we move into Krugerands… our assets up to $99 billion, then calculator overflow. Now we need to work on time transporter so I can bring stuff back.”
“Bring stuff back? You’re so rich, why don’t you just buy it?”
“Earthling not think straight. Some stuff not around any more… How much you reckon Than Diego Zoo pay for a breeding pair of Dodoth?”
“San Diego Zoo? Dodos? Are you crazy?”
I returned to my struggle with 15 Down: It was looking like “IRA”, but the only “George’s Brother” with three letters is “JEB”. Something was wrong somewhere, and for once it wasn’t Detective Inspector “Raving” Ravioli of the Serious Pasta Crimes Squad breathing down my neck.
“Anyway, you think I lathybones but today I spend hours on phone with Immigration to apply for Prettykewl Athylum. Nice man say no to Athylum, not eligible for Visa, need speak to Consulate, where you from? So I say Planet Siriuth 7 and he laugh and say we better try Rothwell. So tomorrow we go to Rothwell.”
“Roswell? But he only said that as a joke!”
“A joke? That make me sad... am I really an illegal alien?”
“Guess so, if there’s anything I can do to help, just let me know…”
“OK, podner. After you marry me I get Green Card – can I have some more sarthaparilla, Honey?”
Well, amazing but true, turns out that the androgynous Art is really a She. And it can only have happened here – that’s about it for this month’s update from the Wabasso Triangle.
Anthony Chianti, Indian River Community Pasta Detective, signing off.
© 2002 Kenneth R Thornton-Smith