The Prairie Spy

Alan “Lindy” Linda

“AMAZING!!!” So said the brochure which just came in the mail. “You can look and feel years younger—almost immediately.”

Now be honest. Who among us doesn’t want to look younger? The “immediately” part, well, now, that’s just icing on the cake. Usually, looking younger takes time, sweat, and liposuction. Let’s read on:

“Step back in time for a moment….”

Huh? Step back in time? If you have do that, this could be the first glitch in what promises to be a wonderful undertaking, but who wants to look younger twenty years ago, back in time someplace? Looking younger, as a hypothetical undertaking, pretty much has to happen right now. Not several younger yesterdays ago. Heck. This could be a big disappointment, after all. And it had looked so promising. I was all ready to look younger now. Ain’t it the way it usually is, always something wrong with what sounds like a great offer? Now they’re saying I could be younger when I was younger? Huh.

And if we could step back in time, how far back should we step? First date? As  that experience comes back to me, I just remember a lot of anxiety about what to wear, what to say, what to do—no, let’s don’t go back to that. Although that new white hooded sweatshirt I had on did really make me feel soooooo cool. And those white buck shoes? They soooooo matched that sweatshirt. Unfortunately, I dripped catsup on the sweatshirt early on in the evening, spread the smear out about a foot long with a napkin, and stepped in the mud with the white bucks. Mud, you say? Who’d have thought my ’48 Studebaker would get stuck in our local lover’s lane. And the young lady who was my first true love? She never went out with me again. She couldn’t push very hard, anyway. Maybe we won’t stop stepping back quite yet.

Or maybe we shouldn’t step back so far. But how far? Where would you stop, should you get a magic brochure in the mail and it says it could take you back to sometime in the past? Memories of a couple of high school class reunions tend to reinforce the belief that, of all the places to go, high school ain’t one of them. Although for a moment back there, when I kissed the School Hot Jock’s girlfriend in an unscripted moment of passion during the one-act play, that was pretty fun. When he caught up to me later, that was less so. We won’t go there.

Maybe I could go back to that time when Greene, Iowa was kicking the snot out of us in Friday night football, and after Coach, who listened to me badger him for three years about letting me run back a kickoff,  came up to me on the sidelines with a sadistic gleam in his eye and said: “Go run that kickoff back now.”

Were I to step back in time, I’d suddenly grab my hamstring and feign a major cramp, say “Sorry, coach. Next time, maybe.”  But no, I grabbed my single bar helmet and went and tried it. There was some good news. I caught it. Then, there was some bad news: I caught it. After they extricated me from the dog pile of burly Greene behemoths, they bore me to the sidelines, stuffed my bleeding nose full of something that felt like steel wool, and gave me the rest of the quarter to regain my senses. When I could once again count from ten to one, Coach came over and said: “Good idea; poor execution.” Were I to go back in time, I’d do all that differently, although after kissing The Hot Jock’s girlfriend like that, I should have known that he’d orchestrate a general blocking strike by the kickoff return team, who fell down like round-bottomed bowling pins even though there wasn’t a Greene player within ten feet.

I just read some more about this offer of getting younger: Check out this testimonial: “Ten days ago I tried on my sister’s dress, and it was too tight. Now, after only ten days of “stepping” back, I can fit right into it.” Signed: William.

I don’t think Coach would like it if I showed up for the Greene game as a girl. Maybe all this isn’t such a good idea, after all.