Dear 2009,
Hello from my new condo here in Eterneville, the exclusive development where all of us Timeguys go when our years are up.
I hope you have an enjoyable year there in your new job. It’s a little daunting, I know, when you first start out.
I know I left the place a mess, and I’m sorry. In my defense, though, I inherited all that disorder from 2007. He’s here, too, naturally, but we don’t get along. I’m a little pissed off at him. He, on the other hand, is really angry with 2006. That’s the way it goes here. There are exceptions, of course: 1462 and 1461 get along fine, as do 1746 and 1745. (There’s a rumor here that they’re gay.) Everybody loves 1842. That year had no major wars. It was also the year the first adhesive-backed postage stamp was issued, which was a big deal at the time.
I hope you and I will feel OK with one another when you move in here next January.
Meanwhile, here are some notes which I hope will help you out in the performance of your new job. (This is more than ‘07 did for me, by the way, the bum!):
Enjoy your youth while you have it. This job ages one very quickly. In a couple of months you’ll be an adult already, then an old guy in September or so. Sorry to break the news to you, but that’s just how it works. The bright side is afterwards, you get to hang out here in Eterneville forever, complaining about the mistakes of your predecessors and living the good life.
I hope you have better luck than I did with the financial picture. I kind of screwed up the global economy while I was there. What can I say? I was never good with money.
I might have left the thermostat turned up a little too high. I intended to turn it down before I left but I forgot. You might want to reset it before the ice-cap melts! Haha.
Make sure to check on whether your year is a leap-year or not. I’ve always been confused about those. For some reason, I assumed my year wasn’t, although it turned out it was. As a result, my records were all one day off for a while after my February ended. (I should have realized my mistake when Easter showed up on a Saturday.) As you’ll soon find out, keeping track of everything that happens every day everywhere on the planet is quite a chore, worse if you make the kind of mistake I did.
I think your year is The Year of The Ox, according to the Chinese calendar. Mine was The Year of The Rat, and it really was, along with the 7 years previous. That’s when the USA was ruled by an evil incompetent and a number of his henchmen. During your year, things look like they’re going to be better in that department. Lucky you!
Meanwhile, the leaders of all the countries, states, counties, fiefdoms, kingdoms, municipalities, religious factions, and sports franchises continue to fight over resources, power, and territory, with all the familiar incessant slaughter of innocents that goes along with that. You’re young enough to believe it can change, probably, but we old years thought so, too, and it never happened. Just try to leave the place in better shape than you found it, if you can.
Every year, of course, could be the last one on Earth, since back when 1945, (Who is held in great contempt here by everyone and who was made to live in a hole in the clouds) because of the damned A-Bomb. 1945 claims he was distracted momentarily after he spilled a bit of red wine on his freshly washed toga, and when he looked up, the bomb had already been dropped on Japan. Whatever. A big part of our job is preventing the end of Time as Earth knows it, and he made it a lot harder on all of us who came after him.
BTW, I seem to have lost my Blackberry somewhere there before I left, so if you find it, hang on to it for me, please, and bring it along when we see you here in a year or so. It’s got all my notes about my sure-fire plan to make Earth a better world. I never got a chance to put my plan in action while I was there, though. There’s only so much time in 365 days and nights.
Good Luck!
Your Friend,
2008
