Brush With Time Travelling

David Letterman used to do a bit on his show in which members of the studio audience would stand up and recount experiences from their past where they had a "brush with greatness": a valet who parked Bruce Willis' car, or a woman who waited on Hilary Clinton at a high-class restaurant. That sort of thing. Here's my brush with time travelling.

Vicki and I were travelling in the U.S. and sadly I don't remember where. I imagine it was some city that had comic stores, although that doesn't really narrow it down, especially back in the early 90s when the comic speculation boom was underway. We were heading into or out of a comic store, and a stranger came up to me and asked, with a considerable sense of urgency in his voice, "Can you tell me what day this is?"

Now, as someone who's always dreamed of meeting a time traveller, this was pretty close to the scenario I'd long imagined. I mean, really, who doesn't know what day it is, except a person from the future or the past who's trying to get their bearings? Oh, sure, sometimes we all forget what day it is, but then we don't walk up to strangers and admit it to them, right? And this guy was definitely eager to figure out today's date, which could only mean one thing: I was standing in the presence of a time traveller!

I was all a-tingle at my incredible stroke of luck, and was carefully framing my response, when the stranger followed up with, "I mean, what day of the week is it? I can only park on this side of the street on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, but today's Thursday, isn't it?" He pointed to the nearby parking sign as he casually let all the air out of my balloon.

After straightening him out as to the weekday (I think it was a Thursday, but details fade over time) I was left to think about my near-miss. What a disappointment. Or was it? A clever time traveller would know to cover up his tracks, if he slipped up and blew his cover, wouldn't he? Well, I guess we'll never know.