Some of you have probably been wondering about certain aspects of the future from which we send you these messages. Robotons aside, is it a paradise in other respects? Have we cured cancer and AIDS? Have we solved the problems of hunger and discrimination? Or is it a dystopia? Has democracy died? Has faith died? Is Britney Spears still given airplay on the post-radio?
Typically, though, the major changes in any society are the ones that come out of nowhere, that nobody expects. In the time between you and us, the one huge, unexpected change is that we finally achieved completely open systems of exchange of goods, services, ideas, and values...but only with Russia. I know, weird, right? Some say that it was all a matter of money changing hands behind the scenes, but everybody knows that President Hornsby and Commi-czar Vladminsk had been drinking buddies since grade school.
The changes were small, and sort of corny, at first. They released the new red-and-green striped dollars at Christmastime which, I admit, was pretty clever. And nobody minded the extra day off work for the Day of People's Unity. But after awhile, once the ideas started flowing between cultures, and new values started sinking in, it just got weird. The teenagers started picking up the practice of not using hand gestures for anything negative, and then went overboard with it and stopped using gesticulation altogether. If only your Emos had had this idea, they could have fully achieved looking dead all the time.
The worst thing, though, is the women. There was this idea in the back of the Russian collective consciousness that elderly women should be valued extremely highly, as wisdom comes with age. For instance, in some of the old Baba Yaga stories, some female characters (and often Baba Yaga herself) would become older by one year for every question they asked. So, through a host of weird social processes and a clever PR department, old women became the rage. Our history books say you all thought Ashton Kutcher shacking up with Demi Moore was unusual. But this is worse. Imagine
Harold and Maude as the norm.
For centuries, women had used makeup to simulate the subtle earmarks of ovulation and fertility. From bras to liposuction, some women would go to any lengths to make themselves the best candidates for getting sex. And now that grandma is getting all the sex...I think you can see where I'm going with this. A couple of years ago, the facelifts started.
The wrong kind of facelifts. The kind that make your cheekbones and chin stick out in a sickly sort of way. Some girls even went so far as to get chemotherapy to give their skin that ashen, dying look. Though we were spared any rude hand motions from our guy peers to visualize what they do with the old biddies, the situation still posed a problem for us young men with more
well-adjusted traditional tastes.
Our solution? Date hot girls from the past. I'm surprised none of us thought of it sooner, but we have Louie Diggs to thank for this wonderful idea. I mean, could it be any simpler? Most chicks fall immediately for the "I'm from the future, want to see my rocketship?" line, especially when you show them that the rocketship is the Moxie-5300 Glowbolt model. Fortunately, we have a precedent for this kind of behavior, to which I'm sure you can all relate. Every male college freshman knows the pain of having his shapely peers grabbed up by the seniors in the first few months of college. This is the same thing, but on a much larger scale--and this time, we get the girls. So, ultimately, if you find yourself alone this Valentine's Day because the girl of your dreams is in the arms of some other guy, then you know who to blame. Rufus. Blame Rufus. He goes for those type of women, not me. I'd never steal your girl. But buck up: one day, in the not-too-distant future, you too will have the ability to date
Yvonne Craig.
