TIME GUM


If you've always wanted to roam the corridors of time,
To meet Shakespeare,
Attend the original Olympics,
Or bumble around with dinosaurs,
And you're the kind of person who prefers hiking to driving,
Then I recommend
Time Gum.

Some flavors let you chew your way straight into the past
That you've always read about in history books
While others take you crookedly into other pasts
Of dragons
And wizards
And fairy-tale princesses
And still other flavors give you the future.

I could say more about futures,
But some people feel it's like telling the ending
To a movie you haven't seen yet,
Or opening your Christmas presents early
And having nothing to do on Christmas morning
But sit around wishing you'd waited,
So I won't.

In some ways Time Gum is very mysterious.
Like, nobody knows when or if
It was, or will be, or would have been invented.
But most futures are full of warehouses full of it
So nobody really worries about it.

Some people wonder if it's safe.
The main danger is cheap imitations
That aren't really Time Gum at all
But just regular gum with drugs in it
To make you think you're on a time trip
When you really aren't.

It seems, however,
That dealers in such bogus wares
Often suddenly find
That their grandparents had no children,
And their parents didn't either,
And neither will they, probably,
So it's never really been a problem.

Still, it's safer to buy from someone you trust.
Just ask your friends to recommend someone.
Chances are they can,
Since Time Gum is not as rare
As you might think.

F'rinstance,
If you've ever endured banquet speeches
That seemed to drone on and on forever,
Or been enjoying a concert
When it ended all too soon,
Chances are that some of the lumps
Stuck to the underside of your seat
Are, or were, or will be, or might have been,
Time Gum.

                                              Thomas G. Digby

                                    written 2340 hr Oct 26 83
                                    entered 0415 hr Nov 22 83
                                    format  14:05 12/22/2001