Alexander the Tate

September 25, 2007, 2:00 pm; posted by
Filed under Articles, Job  | 1 Comment

Best of Job, April 2006.

Once during a class I was called on unexpectedly by the professor, and asked my opinion on something. Since all my focus had been trained on the parking lot below, I quickly rebooted my brain to retrieve whatever scraps of the question still lingered before they vaporized with the rest of his lecture. You know what I mean — that auditory echo left by the words last spoken. What I produced was nothing shy of amazing. If I were McGyver, I took a paperclip and some pencil shavings and saved the day.

Since I was obviously and painfully blind to the content of the lecture, I had to create my own reality by asking the good doctor a question instead — seemingly rhetorical, “getting at something,” but in all reality just a total snowstorm to buy some time. But somehow the question captured the rest of the period, impressing the teacher with its depth and ability to lasso everyone’s attention.

This same question has gone on to bail me out of several similar situations, CPR to many a failing conversation.

Here it is: if you had a time machine, 25 yards x 20 yards, could you fill it with enough stuff from today to go back to 1 AD and conquer the entire world?

The answer is, of course, YES.

I’m taking three friends and four Yamaha dirt bikes. Along the walls of the enclosure, I will stack a dazzling array of firepower and ammunition. I want lethality and imagery, explosion and precision.

People will simply have to die.

I will require some loudspeakers and a pretty good selection of music as well, but the rest of the time machine will be filled with crack cocaine.

My friends and I touch down somewhere outside a Mongol city. As the speakers blare Aerosmith’s “Walk This Way,” we’ll come running and gunning out of the time machine on our dirt bikes. Our mission is to tear through the city, capture their king, bring him back to the time machine, and get the lad hooked on drugs.

Then he will be my puppet.

From there, we’re taking our Mongols (and our crack house) to Rome — to bring the world to its knees.

 

And when professors say the paper is due on Friday, Monday will work out just fine.


Comments

1 Comment to “Alexander the Tate”

  1. David on September 25th, 2007 5:40 pm

    You might want some gasoline for those bikes too.

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