[Columnist’s note: Sorry guys, no material from me this week. Apparently someone forwarded last week’s column to Shatner and Nimoy and I guess they weren’t happy about it, because they came to my apartment last night and broke my kneecaps. I am in a substantial amount of pain!
So instead of the column I had planned (Lusty Hearts 2: Dartag’s Revenge), here is a transcript of a weird spam email I got last night. I only kind of lazily skimmed it, but I guess it’s about politics or something? I don’t really follow the news. Gotta go, the morphine’s wearing off. See you next week!]
Ryan! It’s me! By which I mean it’s you. Us. I’m you, from the future! The bleak, horrible future! Whatever you do, DO NOT just kind of lazily skim this email like I know you want to!
It took me three years of careful scavenging to seize the technology capable of sending an email back in time, mainly because these days the only thing we use computers for is to update our government-mandated social-justice blogs. I’d rather eat my own fingers than write another essay about furry discrimination in America — oops, I mean “Obamerica”. Can’t slip up like that again; I don’t want to end up dragged off to the marijuana mines!
I remember being you, Past Ryan, and I remember seeing that Chuck Norris political ad in which he predicted that Barack Obama’s re-election would usher in “a thousand years of darkness” without so much as a trace of irony or self-awareness. I also remember thinking, “Dang, election season really brings out the paranoid drama queen in overrated B-list celebrities.” But oh, how wrong I was/you are!
For out of the Great Prophet’s many years of producing subpar action flicks and riding the popularity imparted upon him by hundreds of bored college students, a vision of the dark truth arose: that Barack Obama was, in fact, “He Who Is Called The Antichrist.” Why did we not heed his warning when we had the chance? How could we have been so blind?
You have to listen to me: This is the most important election of your life. I know you’re saying, “But, dude, come on, that’s what they said in 2008, and 2004, and 2000, and literally every election since the dawn of civilization.” But this time it’s seriously for real!
In my timeline, upon his successful re-election, Barack Obama’s first act in office (after hunting and killing Paul Ryan for sport) was to outlaw Christianity, capitalism, and happiness. Not any kind of specific happiness; just, you know, happiness in general. I haven’t smiled in 12 years.
And what is there to smile about? After the Obamadman proclaimed himself Supreme Ruler for Life, since apparently presidents can do that, it wasn’t long before the country was overrun by welfare parasites. Not low-income urban families, actual parasites; they burst out of people’s stomachs and demand food stamps. It’s horrible. And the health care! Last month the Obamacare Death Panels removed my spine and gave it to a hobo to…
Hello? Can you read this, Past Ryan? It’s you, from the future! The bleak, horrible future! Listen, I don’t have much time to type this. I just turned 30 and the Medicare Voucherbots will be looking to drag me off for genetic de-processing. Whatever you do, you HAVE to stop the Alpha Cyborg — you know him as Mitt Romney — from getting elected. If he wins, America will…
Hey, what the heck? This is MY desperate email to my past self, stop hijacking it! And Mitt Romney isn’t a cyborg overlord; he’s the last, best hope for humanity against the Obamenace! That’s “Obama Menace”, by the way, in case it wasn’t clear. See, we conservatives have this thing where we like to squish Obama’s name together with...
Hope for - are you nuts?! In my timeline, Mitt Romney single-handedly destroyed America and crushed the human race beneath his biotic heel! If Barack Obama had been re-elected, none of this would be happening!
Wow. It’s almost like neither of our timelines is real, but rather the fevered syphilitic nightmares of hysterical voters terrified of losing any election for any reason.
Man, that’s deep. I wonder what things would be like if people didn’t treat politics as an overdramatized, sensationalist … oh crap, the metal overlords found me. No! My precious genes! Noooooooo!
When Ryan McAndrews is not time traveling, he’s a senior studying journalism at Ohio University. Is Ron Paul actually the last bastion of hope for humanity? Email him at rm287608@ohiou.edu.
