Thirty-nine, Dude!
2005-03-21

Today - March the twenty-first in the year two-thousand and five - is ol' Sproutie's thirty-ninth birthday! (Please send any cards, prezzies or voluptuous women to the usual undress)

Now, let's be honest: thirty-nine is not exactly youthful, is it? Okay, so it's not as old as it was when I was young, but luckily, as I charge through life, middle age seems to be running ahead of me. Perhaps middle-age is not running quite as fast as I am, but I'm pretty much counting on Zeno's paradox to keep me on the right side of it.

But... Crikey, thirty-bloody-nine! That means officially I'm not once, not twice, but three times a teenager. I can barely remember being thirteen. Okay, well, maybe that's not such a significant fact, given that I can barely remember being thirty-eight.

All the same, let's have a little meander down memory lane, shall we? In fact, let's go one better: let's all hop in my time-machine and travel back twenty-six years...

[Imagine a big black-and-white spinning spirally thing here, as is traditional for time-machines]

[Travel, travel, travel... Bump!]

Okay, we've arrived! The date is March 21, 1979! We're in a housing estate somewhere on the south side of Dublin (that's in Ireland, just in case you don't know). Looking around, we can see that it's not a bad place, really. Serious lack of amenities, though. Not many families have cars, and the few that do tend to have rusting Morris Minors (not because we've travelled that far back; mainly because this is not a very wealthy area).

And look! There's a young boy leaving his house, heading towards the local shops (for local people). He's disturbingly thin and awkward, isn't he? He looks like he's made out of someone else's spare elbows. And what's with all that hair?

Let's follow him. And be quiet at the back, there; we don't want him to - Too late! He's spotted us!

The young boy turns around... Ooh, that was lucky! By an amazing coincidence, we've managed to bump into Young Sprout on our very first try!

Young Sprout: "Blooming heck! Where did all you people come from? You weren't here a blinkin' minute ago!"

So that's me, at the age of thirteen! Thin, spectacle-free, hairful, and swearing like a very inexperienced trooper.

Me: "Hello, Sprout."

YS: "Who are you? And how do you know my name? And... What are all those people doing looking at me?"

At this point, Rac makes a nasty, spiteful comment about the cut of Young Sprout's anorak. Older Sprout thumps him soundly for it.

Me: "Sprout, I'm you, from the future!"

YS: "Prove it, then!"

Me: "Er... Right. See that time-machine over there?"

YS: "What, the one with the big black-and-white spinning spirally thing?"

Me: "How many other time-machines are there around here? Yes, that one! Me and my mates here arrived in that. We came all the way from the year 2005 just to meet you."

YS: "Why?"

Bolt-01: "Because he has a long-overdue column to write and he couldn't think of anything else."

Me: "Bolt, do you want to be left behind, is that it? I mean, some people would be grateful for a free go in a time-machine!"

I turn back to Young Sprout and say, "Just trust me, okay? I'm you from twenty-six years from now."

YS: "What the darn happened to your hair?"

Me: "Er... It's all the rage in the twenty-first century."

This induces a lot of sniggering and muttered comments from you lot. Oh, thanks a bunch, guys!

YS: "So, what, I grow up to become a journalist, then? Not an astronaut?"

Me: "I'm not really a journalist, either."

YS: "You're an inventor, then? You must be, if you have a time-machine."

Gavin: "No, the time-machine isn't real. It's a narrative device."

Me: "Shut up, Gavin! You're ruining the atmosphere. Ignore them, Sprout. Look, the reason we're here is to look back and see how things have changed."

Young Sprout has a look at the assembled multitude. "Why are there so few women? Are they all at home minding the children?"

Me: "Listen, kid... Never, ever say anything like that again! It's a sexist comment and chicks don't like that; you know the way women are. Anyway, I'm not really supposed to talk about the future, because of interrupting the natural order of things, and so on. You've read enough time-travel novels; you know what I'm talking about."

YS: "So I know that I make it to thirty-nine, at least. That's something. Doesn't that mean that I can take any risk I like and I know I won't die?"

Me: "Let's not go there, okay? I've already covered that sort of thing in a previous column."

YS: "So, you are a journalist then?"

Me: "Kind of, I suppose. I write a column for the 2000 AD Review website."

YS: "What's a website?"

We all indulge in a great deal of whispering about how to explain to Young Sprout exactly what the Internet is.

Me: "It's like... An electronic magazine, run on computers."

YS: "You have a computer? Wow!"

Me: "I've got half-a-dozen of them. But that's not the point."

YS: "Are you married?"

Me: "Yes."

YS: "Do I know her?"

At this point, Byron Virgo chips in with, "Yeah, you get married to Farrah Fawcett!"

YS: "You mean Steve Austin's wife? Darn! I'd rather be married to Jaclyn Smith!"

"Me too," says almost everyone present.

Me: "He's lying, Sprout. I'm married to someone famous, yes, but I'm not allowed to say who she is. She's a lot cuter than Farrah Fawcett or Jaclyn Smith, though."

YS: "So what's this 2000 AD Review thing, then? It's not something to do with the comic, is it?"

Me: "Actually, it is. The comic is still running and we're up to prog 1430."

YS: "And is Tharg really an alien?"

Me: "Don't be stupid. For God's sake, Sprout! You're thirteen, not five!"

Rac: "Sprout, can we go back a couple of years and pick up a bunch of prog number one's?"

Me: "No, we can't."

Rac: "Ah, go on! I want a Space-Spinner!"

Me: "No! This is my time machine, so we go where I say we can go!"

YS: "Listen, it's nice to meet you and all your friends, but I think I should go now."

Me: "Wait, wait... What prog are you on now?"

YS: "104. Why?"

Me: "Ah! The one with Johnny Alpha fighting Fly's Eyes on the cover, right? Well, next week's prog has Judge Dredd and Walter on the cover, drawn by Bolland. So when you get that, you'll know we really are from the future, okay?"

YS: "Okay. Is there anything else I need to know?"

Me: "Yeah... Keep all your progs, okay? Don't cut things out of them! And see if you can get yourself a full set of Starlords - they're hard to find in the twenty-first century."

Judge Nixon: "Hey, little Sprout! You like Star Wars?"

YS: "Yeah."

Judge Nixon: "Guess what? Darth Vader is really Luke's father! Bwahahahaaaa!"

Me: "Right, that's it! We're going home! Everyone - back in the time-machine!"

Everyone: "Aw...!"

Me: "Don't you all look at me like that! Interfering with causality is one thing, but spoiling movies is just plain unforgivable!"

So, one-by-one, you all trudge back into the time-machine. I take a moment to say good-bye to Young Sprout, wish him a happy birthday, and tell him to save his money and invest it in a company called Microsoft. This, of course, is exactly what he did, and a good thing too; otherwise, I'd never have been able to afford a time-machine... And then this column would be a blank space.