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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

to be sad I'll never travel back in time?

82 replies

JammyGem · 14/09/2015 18:27

An odd thing to be sad about I know.

It hits me every now and then that I'll never travel back in time - I was reading a book about a local biscuit maker the other day (riveting, I know) and they listed a few of the old biscuits that they stopped making after the war, and commented how we'll probably never know what they tasted like - my immediate thought was 'ooh when I go back I'll have to try some of these, they sound interesting'. Then the obvious fact that that's never going to happen hit me and I felt a bit glum

It happens for loads of random things, I think 'when I travel back to Roman times I'm going to ask Catullus x' or 'I'm going to go see Aristophanes' Frogs when he first puts it on' or 'I'm going to visit the singing statue of Memnon when it still sang' etc...

Completely barmy I know, but AIBU?

OP posts:

DioneTheDiabolist · 14/09/2015 18:33

Don't feel sad OP. DS has told me that he's going to invent a Time Machine that can transport you back and forward and then he is going to go up to Stephen Hawking and say "In your face Stephen Hawking".

I'll ask him to let you use it, as biscuits are such an important part of our culture. You'll have to wait for a couple of years as he's only 8 right now, but he said he will have it perfected before he's 26.

cocobean2805 · 14/09/2015 18:58

Yanbu. I'm always daydreaming about living in the 1950's blame call the midwife whilst I know its fictional and all lovely and in reality it might not have been all that and a bag of chips. It just seemed so full of community and camaraderie and whatnot. Although the internet didn't exist so no MN (major drawback) maybe I'd talk to actual neighbours?!

VoyageOfDad · 14/09/2015 19:11

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

cocobean2805 · 14/09/2015 19:49

The fact that you know that says to me that you've thought about it , tried to make a time machine, achieved time machine and are not posting from your time machine, but lost in space voyage am I right?

MrsGinnyPotter · 14/09/2015 19:52

Never say never op. Stranger things have happened!!

calamityjam · 14/09/2015 19:54

I get the impression that you are mourning the loss of your time machine. You Abu to have not purchased a replacement flux capacitor when they were freely available. Your loss op

Original poster

JammyGem · 14/09/2015 19:55

Dione I'd be very grateful for the use of your DS's time machine, and good luck to him!

OP posts:

featherandblack · 14/09/2015 19:57

I get sad about this too but never admitted it before. Very much a first world problem...

Lipsiensis · 14/09/2015 19:57

Read Time Line by Michael Crichton. It really is the biggest pile of old bobbins, but entertaining sciencey bobbins. Does make you think about how going back to days of yore might not be a barrel of laughs.

I often wonder about my teeth if I went back. I'm 40 but I've got great teeth. Not a single filling. I think they'd burn me as a witch. Or pull them out.

SagaNorensLeatherTrousers · 14/09/2015 20:00

Jay Z managed it. You should tweet him.

to be sad I'll never travel back in time?

ArialBold · 14/09/2015 20:02

I'm gutted I can't go back to Ancient Egypt. I can't say that to anyone else but you guys

scrappydappydoo · 14/09/2015 20:05

No forget Michael Crichton - you need to read the St Mary's chronicles.

I would love to go back in time but think I'd probably end up interfering and messing it all up.

Bambambini · 14/09/2015 20:06

I'd love to be able to just teleport back for a few hours or a a few days to see what it was really like. I can be walking or driving and just wonder whatnot would have looked like 50, 100, 1000 years ago!

PermetsTu · 14/09/2015 20:07

Oh me too.

I went to an archaeology day with dd yesterday (she is 8 and wants to be an archaeologist). I was chatting to a chap from a metal detector society and he was explaining his stone age finds to me and discussing rudimentary cooking techniques using flint and I thought "I'm going to go back in time and see if any of this stuff you're surmising is true". I then felt inordinately sad less than a second later because I couldn't do that. I want to go back over and over again, every time to a different era. I'm mostly sad that I was born now. Whilst so thankful for elements of my existence, I look at my family tree (got it back to C13th and I wish so fervently that I could just sit down with all those women and say "hey, tell me what life's really like".

PermetsTu · 14/09/2015 20:08

I also want to bring my relatives forward to my time. I want to whizz back to Leicester workhouse, kidnap my great, great, great grandmother and her tiny babies and show them what life for their descendents will be like. So much better than theirs in so many ways.

BrieAndChilli · 14/09/2015 20:11

Dione - maybe our DSs can team up, DS1 is 8 and also is going to invent a time machine!

ijustwannadance · 14/09/2015 20:26

Lips i love a bit of sci-fi but time line was awful. Very contradictive.

I wouldn't want to go back. People were dirty mingers with sti's, or horrible punishments. I'm quite happy with my daily shower, washing machine and readily available supply of chocolate.

CaptainHammer · 14/09/2015 20:33

Yanbu. One of my patients is 99 and I would love to be a fly on the wall at some of her experiences!

Snoozebox · 14/09/2015 20:51

I can guess what my great-great-great grandmother in the workhouse would have been like, especially if I boasted to her about how great I have it now. She'd be very gruff and then call me a stuck-up cow or something while saying several Hail Marys.

I'm basing this on how grumpy my grandmother looks in photos from the 1940s.

Feilin · 14/09/2015 20:52

I'd go back to Tudor times for a bit then the Plantagenets . I prefer the Middle Ages so I might stay there ??

FlibbertigibbetArmadillo · 14/09/2015 20:53

Will you be my friend? I think this all the time!

ThoseAwfulCurtains · 14/09/2015 20:54

YANBU - it's not yet available to just anyone

Original poster

JammyGem · 14/09/2015 20:56

Permets That's exactly it! It's like I keep forgetting that it isn't possible and think to myself I'm going to do x or see if x is real, and then feel sad a split second later when I realise I can't.

Flibbertigibbet Of course! I'm just glad I'm not the only one!

OP posts:

BlackAmericanoNoSugar · 14/09/2015 20:57

You should read this series of books Jammy, it's not as good as real time travel but it's interesting all the same.

I'm sorry that I won't live a long time into the future. I'd like to see if humans make it to the end of the century without a near-extinction disaster.

PermetsTu · 14/09/2015 21:07

Snoozebox, I feel quite privileged because my great grandmother told me all about her grandma's life in the workhouse. She remained a proud, jolly, funny woman who danced on the table the day her abusive shit of a DH (his regular incarceration was the reason for her being in the workhouse on and off for a few years) finally fucked off and she shacked up with the bloke up the road and had a blissful 30 years living in sin.

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