April 16, 2008

Barbarian Repellent, Mammoth Chunks and…Chubble

Are you weary, young intergalactic time traveler? Then I know just the place! The Time Travel Mart, located in Echo Park, Los Angeles, 2008, carries everything the sophisticated inter-dimensional road tripper could possibly need.
Is your stomach rumbling? Pick up some tasty Mammoth Chunks!
Is your head cold? They sell Agamemnon masks, Centurion helmets and Janissary hats, all at very reasonable post-Millennial prices!
Planning a trip to the Dark Ages? The Time Travel Mart sells top-of-the-range Barbarian Repellent! Its unique blend of ingredients (which include Ballet, Soap, Villanelle, Ovaltine, Chess, Long Division and Salad) has been proven to repel even the fiercest Visigoths, Vandals, Anglo Saxons and Celts from 100 meters.
This little convenience store is managed by Mac Barnett, a young citizen of the 21st century. He is in charge of stock replenishment and customer service, and was kind enough to show me around the store. We start at the pharmaceutical section, where he stocks his range of Robot Emotions. Contained in plastic test tubes, they are designed for visiting robots, with varieties including “Rage”, “Love”, “Happiness”, “Boredom” and “Guilt”.
“Robots want to have emotions, even negative ones, because they want to feel like a human,” he says. “Love is generally the gateway emotion, it’s the first one they pick usually. Then they want to try “guilty” or “bored”.”
Intriguing.
He leads me to their 19th century section, where you can buy products like the Elixir of Eternal Life, and The Specific. So what, specifically is The Specific? I wonder. “The specific is very unclear,” explains Mac. “It lacks all specificity.”
Naturally!
There’s high grade time travel fuel that comes in an emergency three liter size, perfect for speeds of up to 10,000 hours per hour. There are bags of Shade, which contain a chestnut. “You go back in time and plant the seed and then when you go back you’ve got a tree,” explains Mac. Be sure to check out their Middle Age Hygiene line, which includes tooth darkening strips and dirt-causing soap. They also sell Nanobots, small robots that are so tiny you can’t even see them. “We actually guarantee that you will never see our bots,” says Mac, glowing with pride. “Other companies will sell you a nanobot that is actually a millibot or even a microbot. We make our competitors’ bots look like megabots!”
And in case your nanobot starts talking back to you, they also sell Evil Robot Memory Eraser which claims to “restore your robot to his original factory settings, eliminating Sass Residue, Free Will and Resentment. Their grocery section features Robot Milk, Caveman Candy, Powdered Horse Milk, and one of their biggest sellers, Chubble. Chubble? “Ah yes, Chubble,” enthuses Mac. “This is the product of the future. We have all the varieties. We’ve got Enriched Chubble, Halal Chubble, Unleaded Chubble, Junior Chubble and Pink Chubble. I look on the side and it says “Three Trillion Sold”. Impressive. But what is it? He won’t say, he’s already moved on to the Pure English Tea by Smyth and Smythe. According to the packaging, tea is the “most English thing in the world”, “invented by English people”.
“That’s one of the things about time travel," he says. "You come up against the fact that a lot of history isn’t really that funny. That’s how we dealt with colonialism.”

Turns out Mac is more than just a humble shop assistant. He’s a friend of the author Dave Eggers, and together, through Eggers’ “826” charity, they built the Time Travel Mart. It’s supposed to be an educational experience for children, and at the back of the Mart is a large learning area. That’s where local kids gather four days a week for help with their homework. How could they not be inspired, in a place where the house motto is “whenever you want to be, we’re already then”?
I bought three bottles of Dead Languages, drank them, and made my way back to the present.
Visit www.826la.org for more information

April 16, 2008 in FASHION | Permalink