Togo Goes Time Traveling

I hope you don’t think I’m crazy, but I had a supernatural experience recently. Before I go on, I need you to promise to keep this confidential.

I’m just now sorting it out, but I think I’ve experienced time travel.

Last Saturday night, I got ready for bed and went through my normal routine. I went to the bathroom, I drank a whole lot of water, I talked Daddy out of a crunchy treat, and then I experimented with three different positions in my quest to get comfortable. And then I flopped over on my side just like I always do.

Soon, I was fast asleep. In what seemed like no time, I found myself awake and needing to go to the bathroom again. I stood up and saw that it was 1 a.m. I woke up Daddy and he stumbled to the door and let me out. When I returned, I went through my middle-of-the-night bio-break routine. I let Daddy pat me as I came back in, I talked him out of another crunchy treat, and I drank a whole lot of water.

Normally, I would fall right back to sleep. Except that right before bed, Daddy was listening to a song called “Bohemian Rhapsody”¹ on his phone, and I couldn’t get it out of my head. Some of the words were quite disturbing, but the music was spectacular.

Galileo (Galileo), Galileo (Galileo),
Galileo Figaro, magnifico.

It just kept playing over and over in my head as I watched the clock move to 1:15 to 1:30 to 1:45 to 1:50 to 1:55 to . . . 1:58 . . . 1:59 . . .

And that’s when I leapt backward in time.

1:59 . . . 1:00 a.m.

What in the world just happened?! And with that trip backward in time, my mind sank deeper into the lyrics!

Easy come, easy go, will you let me go?
No, we will not let you go (let him go)
We will not let you go (let him go)
We will not let you go (let me go)
Will not let you go (let me go)
Never, never, never, never let me go
No, no, no, no, no, no, no

And you know what? It didn’t let me go. Time marched on as I watched for the next hour. 1:05 . . . 1:55 . . . 1:58 . . .1:59 . . . 2:00 a.m.

At some point, I fell asleep, albeit fitfully. I awoke with the terrifying realization that an entire hour had been added to my life. And nobody else seemed to notice! I didn’t know where I’d been or what I had done!

This whole week, I’ve been showing up for meals, walks, and bed time at my usual time. And Momma and Daddy pretend that I’m an hour too early. Despite my protests, they have made me suffer incredible hunger pangs lasting up to a full hour.

I’ve drawn the line on bed time, though. No matter what, I still go to sleep when my body tells me, too. And I get up according to Togo Time, too.

I believe that I am the victim of a time travel experiment gone bad. You see, on Monday I called a place up in Boulder, Colorado where they have an atomic clock. I asked them what time it was 72 hours earlier. Now, if all was right with the world, it would have been the exact same time as the time I asked the question. But it wasn’t.

It was exactly one hour off!

I’ve watched the SyFy channel a lot and everyone knows that when there’s time travel involved, you always come back to the original time unless something goes horribly wrong.

Please try not to get upset. But I believe that something has gone horribly wrong and I’m stuck in a particularly pernicious time wrinkle. With some hopelessness, I have retreated back into song:

Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?
Caught in a landslide, no escape from reality
Open your eyes, look up to the skies and see
I'm just a poor boy, I need no sympathy
Because I'm easy come, easy go, little high, little low
Any way the wind blows doesn't really matter to me, to me

By the way, Daddy is in on the time travel experiment. He just keeps telling me that the United States Congress controls time and that they did this and may do it again. I also watch C-SPAN on slow SyFy days. And it appears to me that those people in Congress aren’t in control of anything. I’m telling you, it’s a plot.

Watch your clocks, people! And don’t be fooled.

Mama, ooh, didn't mean to make you cry
If I'm not back again this time tomorrow
Carry on, carry on as if nothing really matters

This time tomorrow may never be the same again. But at least the sun is up when Daddy takes me for a walk now. Remember, Togo Time is our only hope.

1. Written by Freddie Mercury, 1975.