Seriously, I’m not gonna open an interdimensional wormhole on my front lawn and travel back in time by myself. That’d be so boring! Come on, think about all the times I tried something new for you: Zumba, flossing, wearing pants that don’t have drawstrings, and did I mention Zumba? So maybe this time, we can actually do something I wanna do for once. Right now, that’s DIY time travel.

Ever since I got laid off at Wetzel’s Pretzels, I’ve had a lot of free time. So instead of making banana bread like everybody else, I built a TIME MACHINE! Cool, right? It wasn’t even that hard, really. I just watched every YouTube video with Neil deGrasse Tyson in it and joined every time travel forum on the internet. Well, except Reddit, because Reddit confuses me.

Come on, what else are we gonna do? You’ve already said no to Eurovision: The Story of Fire Saga twice, and yesterday you said that I get to choose what we’re having for dinner tonight. Well, I choose chicken alfredo in the year 1893 – right after we kill baby Hitler. It’ll be fun, I promise! It won’t be traumatizing or anything. Plus, I already have a monologue ready for when we do it. It’s a little rough, but the meat is there. You’ll see. Besides, if I mess up, we can just do it again. That’s the beauty of time travel!

Why don’t you look excited? Okay, be honest. Is this about food safety standards in nineteenth century Germany, or is it about your confidence in my ability to build a functioning time machine that’s not gonna blow our limbs off? Because I PROMISE you, there is absolutely nothing to be worried about. If anything, food was even safer back then. No GMOs!

Okay look, I know I’m not Matthew McConaughey or a disgraced nuclear physicist in a DeLorean, but I DO have a master’s degree in advertising. That has to count for something, right? You know, sometimes it actually helps to have zero experience. Beginner’s mind! Steve Jobs wasn’t a computer programmer, and just look at Apple! This is literally the same exact thing, except with uranium involved.

Plus it’s never even been confirmed that creating a paradox will set off a ripple effect and cause the universe to implode. They probably just made that up to sell movies. We can literally do whatever we want! Bet on sporting events, sleep with historical figures, go outside without social distancing… Haha now it’s starting to sound pretty fun, huh?

That’s what I thought. Okay, so here’s your helmet. I made it look kind of steampunky to give it that Burning Man look. You won’t actually need the goggles, but I thought it was a nice touch. Plus it only cost me like fifty bucks to make. It’s incredible what you can find on Facebook Marketplace these days.

Alright, I’m starting to get a bit antsy. Let’s get going. See those wooden barrels stacked beneath the Apache helicopter blades? When climbing into your seat, be careful because there’s over four hundred gallons of gasoline in them. You can’t see it because of the shower curtain, but trust me, it’s there. If you accidentally knock one over, it’s gonna take us forever to clean up and I won’t get my security deposit back, soooo yeah.

Also, see that mason jar that’s lodged between the Bowflex cables and the toaster oven? That’s the plutonium. You really don’t want to touch that. Or be near it. Or look directly at it. On second thought, just pretend I never said anything. What plutonium, right? Hahahahahaha okay.

Once I press start on the TiVo, the pillowcase of grenades will tumble down into that off-brand InstaPot, chemically react with the Mountain Dew Code Red, releasing the safety valve, then… boom! An atomic, four-dimensional explosion happens that’ll blast us through a wormhole at light speed.

Then, roughly thirty seconds to nine hours later, voila! We’ll officially become the first people to ever travel through a wormhole without disintegrating. But more importantly, we’ll officially become the first people to kill baby Hitler!! Personally, I’m hoping he’ll already have his mustache. But that’d just be the cherry on top. I don’t need it to be happy.

Oh and one last thing, before I forget. For every 2.37 minutes we spend in the past, roughly one decade will pass here in the present. But who cares, right? 2020 sucks!!!