in which we confirm our outsider status

Set up: the audience is seated in a ball pit and told to arrange the balls in to piles according to color.


When I was in 1st grade, I became fascinated with dinosaurs. I had all the books, knew all the names. The idea that something that huge used to walk around, right where I lived, was amazing to me. And also the fact that they had lived for millions of years and now there were none. How could that be? What could have killed them all? I had to know.

I became obsessed with the idea of time travel. I rode the bus to school everyday, and my seatmate was named Chris Walker. We were both in the same class and quickly became best buddies. Every morning on the way to school, we would speak in robotic voices and consult the imaginary computers attached to the back of the seat in front of us. "What do you want me to do, Computer?", we would ask. We would get our time traveling assignments from the computer, to use at recess. The assignments would vary, but were always pretty much the same: travel back in time and save the dinosaurs.

After receiving our assignment, it would be time to go to school and learn real things. Yeah yeah blah blah adding and subtracting ABC... Time for recess! Chris and I would race to our time machines, which were cleverly disguised. Mine looked a giant blue whale with a spring sticking conspicuously out of its solar plexus. Chris's looked like a yellow tawny lion, also perched on a spring. Of course, this is only how they appeared to the casual onlooker. We knew the real truth, these were our time traveling mounts, destined to take us back in time, if only we could get them going fast enough. I can still feel the wind on my face and hear the squeak of the springs as we went faster, faster, faster... The landscape would start to blur and we could hear a roaring in our ears... was that just the blood pounding or was it the prehistoric cry of a pterodactyl?

Finally, we would arrive in the land before time. There was swamp and vines everywhere, the humidity was oppressive. The landscape was amazing and begged to be explored, but we had to be very careful. Dinosaurs are very unpredictable and could attack at any time. We couldn't stray very far from our time machines, or we could risk being discovered and eaten. However, we still had our assignments to complete. Some times the computer would have told us to find important rubies or samples of tar, but usually we had to try and find a dinosaur egg. This was the most dangerous mission of all. Dinosaur mothers are very protective. My very favorite dinosaur was the brontosaurus, so obviously their eggs were the most coveted. Years later I heard that there actually was never a brontosaurus, that it had simply never existed. Well, I am here to tell you folks, that is false. I've seen one, I know.

Chris's missions were usually even more daring and involved trying to get the tooth of a Tyrannosaurus Rex. We had some very close shaves, sometimes being able to feel the breath of the giant beast on our backs before we leapt to our time machines, throwing our bodies back and forth to gain enough momentum to travel forward to our present time. Faster, faster, faster we went, the wind again in our ears, the bugs in our teeth. We raced against time and impending doom to arrive safely back to the playground. Everyone else around us was so clueless, they had no idea about the adventure we'd just had.

The afternoons were spent on learning social studies and feeding the class fish and the bus ride home was devoted to perfecting our rendition of Billy Idol's "Mony Mony." But I knew that the next morning would bring another fresh adventure.