The following listing recently appeared on the Springfield, MO Craigslist:

“I have a functioning time machine (i know it sounds unbelievable, but I assure you it works) that I need a 2nd person to operate with me. I’m looking for someone who is adventurous and reliable. Preferable a male; or a female that can do heavy lifting. I am leaving on January 20, 2011 , in the morning and plan to return February 3,2011. I am going to June 1983 to handle some business.

If you are serious about time travel and are reliable, then please contact me. You do not have to pay anything, but you would have to provide someone to watch my cat for the time we are gone. The only qualifications needed are that you are reliable and that the circumference of your head is no more than 64cm.

We will be leaving from Springfield,Mo. Let me know if you want to go with me.”

My friend David Brazeal responded:

I stumbled upon your advertisement on Craigslist on the afternoon of January 20, 2011 — too late to join you on your excursion into the past.

Fortunately, having dabbled in time manipulation myself in the late 1830s, I was able to travel to January 17th, one day after you posted your listing, from which time I am responding.

I am both reliable and adventurous, and well-acquainted with 1983, having spent that summer as an intern in the State Department’s Office of Botswanan Affairs. In addition, I have an elderly aunt who loves cats.

Regarding your qualification that my head be less than 64cm in diameter, I assure you that, although my head is slightly too large for a standard time travel headpiece, I have crafted an adapter from a 1960s Oster beauty-salon hair dryer and the innards of a PlayStation 3 controller.

Please let me know as soon as possible whether you still require a companion for your trip. If you have filled the position, I need to return to January 20 to take some brownies out of the oven.

One more thing…

David is leaving our company (after 17 years) in a month or so, to strike out on his own (uh, should I rephrase that? Fuck it). The post above is just one more example of what I mean when I describe someone as “too funny for their job.”