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A Slacker Across Multiple Timelines

Written by Clay N Ferno

“What, did you sleep in your clothes again last night?”

— Dave McFly, 1985

As far as inspiring quotes, this doesn’t immediately go into the meme bank for everyone, but it’s something I can relate to.

I sleep in my clothes, sort of more than I should. Perhaps it’s the late nights at my job or that I stay up so late I don’t want to ever go to bed. Recently, domestic life has steered me into the bed sans jeans more often than not, but hey, it still happens.

Was I a ten year old looking up to Marty and subconsciously aping his sleep hygiene habits? Maybe I thought I’d have a hot girlfriend when I got to high school and I could take her to the lake like Marty did in a shiny new Toyota Hilux 4X4.

Marty McFly was one of my first movie heroes. And damn, I loved that DeLorean. In fact, I still think about the plutonium and fusion powered, hover-converted bird-winged time machine nearly every day of my life. Here’s what I can remember of the movie and the car, in my sleep deprived old age.

Let’s take this to 88 miles per hour!

Have you ever been in a DeLorean? It’s pretty sweet but the backseat doesn’t exist. Fitting two adults and two kids into a two-seater is possible, if a bit uncomfortable.

For most of my developmental and adult life, I cherished this ride as one of my fondest memories of the 1980s. Until, like when Marty wakes up under his Mom’s care in a dystopian 1985-A in BTTF Part II, everything is not exactly as Marty remembers it. First, everything in this future is a bit darker, and his Mom looks different. Under Biff’s influence, Lorraine Baines-McFly was enhanced, endowed with certain assets.

I awoke this past Christmas (likely in my clothes, and sharing a breakfast with my siblings), I brought up my love for the Back to the Future franchise, delighted to hear that my sister has passed along the movies to her kids. Then I described the scene perfectly for my nieces.

“Kelsey, remember when Uncle Peter and Aunt Joy had a DeLorean and took us for a ride from Nana’s house when they first got it?”

I can remember the soft tan leather interior, the top of the line Blaupunkt stereo (with cassette player built in – sweet!) and I was in my little navy blue Member’s Only jacket. Someone took the cellophane off of Billy Idol’s  Rebel Yell  cassette and we drove to the pizza place. Or the movies. Or someplace magical. I remember the Billy Idol because I had to ask to turn the bass down. The stereo was making my tiny tummy shake in a way that was uncomfortable.

But there I was, in a goddamned time machine, listening to rock and roll in a decadent decade before cell phones. This was just before I immersed myself into the world of comic books. Only Star Wars, Back to the Future and Saturday television’s Creature Double Feature fueled my fantasy world.

I’ve told potential girlfriends this story over Pepsi’s at many a bar, have seen Billy Idol and his legendary guitarist Steve Stevens in concert, and cried “More, More, More”! countless times over since then.

The mileage of this story was as worn out as Marty’s Nikes by the time he finally arrives in 1885.

Regrettably, this past Christmas, I may have needed a cold cloth on my forehead.

Both my sister and my parents confirmed that I have been living in an alternate history this entire time.

While DeLoreans did EXIST at the time, my memory was of cruising around in another gull-wing car, the Bricklin SV-1. What’s that? Oh, a Bricklin is a fiberglass body Canadian car manufactured in the 1970s in New Brunswick. Only 2,854 cars were made.

WHAT? Who’s vice president now? Jerry Lewis?

How could my own personal timeline of 1985 now skew off into this weird, non-canon 1985-C?

How could I have been proudly carrying this around as a false nerd badge for thirty years?

I hadn’t been riding in a time machine with a Flux Capacitor, I was in one of Time Magazine‘s The 50 Worst Cars of All Time (1975).

Who knows how my uncle got this car or what his motivation was to do so (probably to impress his nieces and nephews, something I also can relate too) or how long he held on to it?

I could find out but… “The consequences of that could be disastrous”!

By the time you are reading this, I am figuring out a way to go back in time to fix this flaw in my timeline, but as the words are not disappearing from the page, you can tell I am having a hard time with it with no Doc Brown on my side.

I have no way of knowing if there are any more adjustments in my own personal story, but this particular regret is like careening head first into a D. Jones Manure Hauling truck.

But no matter, after today, Back to the Future day itself, the future is literally unwritten.

You can get your own custom ride from Stephen Wynne’s currently active DeLorean Motor Company. Build your own from a kit and spare parts! Heck, even rent one for your next big trip out to the lake.

If you are feeling like this is all a bit too heavy for you still, join IDW Publishing today for a new Back to the Future comic written by futurist co-screenwriter for the movie, Bob Gale. A review here from fellow FOG! time traveler, Atlee Greene.

No matter what timeline we end up in at the end of all this, there is more than a 50/50 chance that I’ll be waking up in my clothes on [OCT] [22] [2015].

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