Return to Funny Articles mainpage

Time Travel
By: Paul Mather

A lot has been written about how if you brought a Viking or a caveman into our own time they'd be pretty impressed by the amount of glow-in-the-dark stuff we have. And that's true. But what a lot of people don't think about is this: they'd probably also be impressed by helium-filled balloons.

Not so much because they're latex, although that would probably be somewhat impressive. Mostly because they float. Even the string would be pretty impressive -- to the caveman. The Viking might not care so much. In fact, he's probably a string expert, and could show you a thing or two!

I wouldn't bother showing either of them balloon animals. That's a concept which their primitive minds couldn't grasp. I also wouldn't bother breathing in the helium and talking in a funny voice. Come on, man, this is science!

I think an important thing to remember would be don't teleport the caveman and the Viking into the same room at the same time. That's a recipe for disaster. The caveman's going to be distracted by the Viking and the Viking by the caveman and nobody's really paying attention to these balloons you're trying to show them. You're getting mad, and the Viking can tell you're getting mad, and the caveman's getting scared, and there are just bad feelings all around. Those really aren't the results we were hoping for with our top-secret government-funded balloon-showing project.

My wife says that, eventually, the Viking would get over the balloons and learn to appreciate more complicated technology, like computers. Maybe so, but if the Viking hangs around that long then is he truly a Viking any more? My wife says yes, because he's wearing a Viking hat. But now she's just being stupid because we all know the time machine doesn't work on hats.

Besides, don't give the Viking access to the computer! He's just going to smash it with his axe! Way to wreck a computer, stupid. Even if he doesn't smash the computer, he'll probably just use it to look up the blueprints to the building and escape, and then you're in trouble. Once the Viking gets loose and takes over the world people aren't going to care whether he's impressed by balloons or not. They're going to be mad.

Never mind that the Viking has some good ideas and that, in fact, life is in many ways very good in this strange new Viking-dominated world. The point is the damn government used our own tax money to get us enslaved to some hatless Viking and his stupid caveman crony, and anybody who doesn't like it ends up in some sort of forced labour balloon-making camp because it turns out that yes, damnit, the Viking is very impressed with the damn helium freaking filled balloons!

Thanks a lot, Science!