Time Loop Fantasy
Two months after delving into the fantasy of time travel, I’d like to address another fun fantasy scenario: that of living in a Groundhog Day-type time loop. I think we can all agree that reliving a day in Punxsutawney circa 1993 would have been a challenge, though Bill Murray’s character gave a good go of it in the aforementioned movie. But existing in a time loop prior to widely available internet and streaming services would certainly limit your options. Even worse would be living in a time loop in, say, rural Nebraska in 1890. Or in 2020-2021 during the worst days of the pandemic! Fuggedetaboutit! But fast forward to the 2020 film Palm Springs, which deftly borrows the Groundhog Day synopsis, and it doesn’t seem nearly as awful to be stuck in time. For one, Andy Samberg’s character has a time loop partner in Cristin Milioti, and Cristin’s access to the internet allows her to discover how to escape their predicament. Still, the city of Palm Springs is not a booming metropolis with much to offer, and if you had to live in a time loop, you might choose to pull the levers of circumstance just a bit to make eternity not only bearable, but even a palatable sentence.
Unlike the time travel question I posed two months ago, there aren’t a multitude of rules to consider in a time loop fantasy; only that no matter what you do, you wake up at the same time on the same day in the same location as the day before, without end. The only additional wrinkle is that for the purposes of this exercise, you’ll have the luxury of knowing in advance that you’ll be stuck in a time loop and therefore have the ability to prepare. What do you choose to do?
For me, I would choose to live more or less in the present day, but before or after the worst of the pandemic. Let’s have all the restaurants and stadiums open at full capacity. Let’s put masks and social distancing behind us. And let’s make air travel as easy as possible.
Speaking of air travel, this is an essential element to living happily in a time loop, so residing close to a large airport is number two on my list. I currently live 20 minutes from O’Hare, so I’m in good shape, but it may be useful to live on the East Coast, which opens up all sorts of interesting locations to visit in the U.S., not to mention much of Europe. Hell, you could hop on an early departure from JFK and reach Paris in time for dinner. Chicago would of course be a better bet if you needed access to the western United States. Or maybe you’d choose to live in Europe, where visiting a multitude of countries is within reach.
I would stick to the U.S., but regardless of location, I would then choose to relive a beautiful 70-degree Saturday in September. The importance of the weather component is obvious, and the request for a Saturday is multifold. First, I could visit 15 different MLB ballparks and scores of college football stadiums to take in a game. I’m not a huge college football fan, but in the midst of an eternal time loop, I could become one. Furthermore, some museums, businesses and restaurants are closed on Sundays, as are banks, so Saturdays offer more flexibility. Also, concerts, plays and musicals are more plentiful on Saturdays, and I could probably spend hundreds of days traveling to see a different act each night (this does strengthen the argument to reside in New York, though Chicago wouldn’t be a bad option). Finally, traffic isn’t so bad on Saturdays, so I wouldn’t have to spend a good chunk of eternity stuck on a U.S. Highway.
Like Adam Sandberg’s character in Palm Springs, I would want someone to be stuck with me in my infinite time loop. In my case, that’s my wife. Sorry, honey!
Prior to the time loop, I would transfer all of our money to an easily-accessible bank account, and I would make sure that our credit card balance is at zero so that we could take advantage of our full credit. We could then of course choose to spend as much money as we want on any given day, knowing that the money will be available to us the next morning. Buying a last-minute first-class ticket to London would be of no concern. We could eat at the most expensive restaurants in town (assuming we could finagle a reservation, but my guess is that dropping a few thousand-dollar bribe to the host would get the job done at most places), buy a sports car for the day, get front row seats to a concert, or walk downtown and give each homeless person a couple of grand that they could enjoy for the day.
During our time loop, we could watch practically every movie known to man, listen to every piece of recorded music, and read every book we’ve never had time to read. Sure, we’d have to repurchase it every day to get to the end of the book, but who cares? We’ve got nothing but time!
We could also visit all three of our kids, though not for as long as we’d like. It might behoove us prior to our time loop sentence to ask our kids to move close to us (this would likely take some convincing). That way we could invite them to join us on whatever adventure we choose.
The above may not make as interesting a movie as Groundhog Day or Palm Springs, but it would be a much more pleasant sentence than enduring a cold shower each morning in frigid Punxsutawney in 1993 or a wedding in hot and dry Palm Springs in 2020, with or without Andie MacDowell or Cristin Milioti. If you can give me reign over my time loop circumstances, I might just sign up!