Once Upon a Time…

Are you sitting comfortably? I’m going to tell you a story. It all happened a very long time ago but my memory of events are still as sharp as ever.

Now, we’ve all heard of the great feats of mankind – climbing Mount Everest; travels to the North Pole; even landing on the moon – it would seem that there is no conceivable place on earth, or anywhere else for that matter, that man has been unable to leave an impression – a boot impression that is.

But this was a place that no man had ever trod.

Much like a message in a bottle which is washed out to sea, many had written their hopes, their dreams, their cries for help, and the secrets of their heart, and sent them out to this place in the hope that someone – anyone – would respond to their call; not knowing if, by whom, when, or where that message would be opened and read. Oh yes, in that sense man had left a very big impression on this place. I dare say if this place really was like the sea there would be millions of bottles all floating together, all different shapes and sizes. I can almost hear the chorus of clinking chinking sounds right now.

Yes, it was a place in Cyber Space, known as The Blogosphere. This is where my little story begins.

Isn’t it amazing that we can look right into Cyber Space and even view events on the Blogosphere in detail through our powerful Cyber telescopes (computers) and yet no man has ever stepped foot there? Even water has been walked on. Anyway, one day on the Blogosphere I saw a bottle floating towards me, figuratively speaking of course, that had my name on it. I opened it and found…

...a Meme. *dud dud daaaah* (dramatic music)

What would I do? Would I respond immediately, or would I add it to my ever growing list of half finished blog posts? Yep, you guessed it; it went on my pile of “things to do”. That’s not to say that I didn’t appreciate having a Meme sent to me; what greater compliment could there be than someone else wanting to know my views and tastes? But… well… I wanted to be able to write my response and send on the Meme to others in an imaginative way. I wanted time to paint the bottle if you like; make it pretty.

I answered the questions and then filed it, waiting for the time, energy, and imagination to strike all at once. I waited. And I waited.

I continued waiting, and in the meantime I had 5 children and 12 grandchildren. Eventually it was time for me to be frozen in a pod. It was pretty routine by that time; a lot of people were being frozen, awaiting the time when mankind could reverse the aging process and cure mankind’s diseases.

Many years later I was thawed. I was surprised to see so many elderly looking people, as I was expecting to be released from the pod only after Scientists had found a way to reverse the aging process. It was then that they dropped the bombshell on me:

The Meme that was sent to me by Jane was of great importance, and by not responding to it I had inadvertently prevented essential information from being passed on through the generations – information that would have helped Scientist to find a way of reversing the aging process and cure many diseases. Without this information they were forced to resort to spending their time working out the mathematical formula for the perfect bacon butty.

The full weight of what they had said sat heavily on my shoulders.
“What can I do?” I asked, with tears stinging my eyes.
“Do you know where you stored this Meme?” they asked.
“Yeah, I think so”
“Go and get it, we need to see it”

So off I went. I was a little stiff I can tell you; I was well into my eighties when I was frozen and that was hundreds of years ago. The bus service wasn’t what it used to be either, and it was never good in the first place. I waited around for so long that I wondered if I would have been better off being frozen again until a bus came.

Finally I got home. I knew exactly where to look for the Meme; the funny thing is that although I hadn’t responded to it I thought about it often. It felt strange looking over those answers again that I had written all those years ago before filing it away. I couldn’t see anything that I thought would be of great importance to the future of mankind though. It read as follows:

Three Things That Scare Me:
1. The possibility of Mr Man seriously harming himself.
2. Spiders. Even photos or drawings of them, or places where they can hide like small toilets.
3. The thought of being bitten by rats, even though I’ve never actually seen a wild rat in my entire life.

Three People Who Make Me Laugh: (only three?)
1. Mr Man
2. Funky Monkey’s Mother
3. Grannys.Myth.Peeler

Three Things I Love:
1. Mr Man
2. My friends and family
3. Singing and dancing to good music

Three Things I Hate:
1. My own personality flaws
2. Stupid people (that answer covers a lot)
3. When I can’t find what I’m looking for

Three Things I Don't Understand:
1. My Mother in law
2. Other languages
3. People who deliberately hurt others, mentally, emotionally, or physically

Three Things On My Desk: (Well, next to me anyway)
1. My Laptop
2. My mobile phone
3. A glass of diet Pepsi

Three Things I'm Doing Right Now:
1. Thinking
2. Typing
3. Playing with my hair

Three Things I Want To Do Before I Die:
1. Publish a book
2. Write a film script
3. Write a song

Three Things I Can Do:
1. Ride a horse
2. Touch my toes without bending my knees (even though I’m old and fat)
3. Flip Pancakes

Three Things I Can't Do:
1. Back flips
2. Speak another language
3. See without glasses or contact lenses

Three Things I Think You Should Listen To:
1. The people you love
2. The elderly
3. Children

Three Things You Should Never Listen To:
1. Malicious gossip
2. Self doubts
3. Geri Halliwell

Three Things I'd Like To Learn:
1. How to play the Guitar
2. More crochet patterns
3. Ballroom dancing

Three Favourite Worst Foods: (I can’t do the “favourites”)
1. Dodgy “meats” like Liver, Kidney, Heart, Tongue…
2. Dodgy seafood like Prawns, Winkles, Muscles…
3. Mushrooms, except the dodgy ones (just kidding)

Three Shows I Watched As A Kid: (but there were so many)
1. The A Team
2. The Fall Guy
3. Heart to Heart

Three Wonderful People to Inflict My Meme On: (again, only three?)
Aiders
Angela
TP


Once I had returned to the… well, it was a secret location, but once I had returned there they agreed to freeze me again. That was millions of years ago now. I was thawed once more when mankind had found a way to return me to my youth – in more ways than one. Not only do I now look younger than I did in my thirties, but we also know how to time travel.

And that is the end of my tale, for now at least. I suspect that will only be the beginning of my story, because now that I have travelled back in time to post this Meme on my blog I have effectively changed the course of history and I have no idea what the outcome of my actions will be in the future. Oh well. You’re damned if you do, and you’re damned if you don’t.