TROUBLESHOOTING GUIDE
FOR TIMECORP'S VH3928-
MODEL TIME MACHINE.
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Problem: After time-traveling, an appendage (arm/leg) comes out impossibly youthful or shockingly frail and decrepit.
Solution: Please keep all arms and legs within the VH3928 during travel. If this is not the problem, please return your VH3928 to TimeCorp.
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Problem: Travel has accidentally stopped midtransfer, and time portal opens itself up to a world of unimaginable horror and torture.
Solution: There has been a slight error in the travel process and we will work as fast as possible to remedy the problem. Please remain in the VH3928 and avoid direct contact with any one of the dragon's thousand eyes.
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Problem: Creature from alternate timeline has stowed away aboard time machine, escaped into user's timeline, and is wreaking havoc on everything user knows and loves.
Solution:
METHOD A: Travel back to origin of alternate timeline, destroy creature before creature has time to escape into time machine, but without altering any other foreseeable subsequent event in alternate timeline, in accordance with VH3928 Terms and Conditions contract, Ethics Clause, Subsection F4.
METHOD B: Abandon hope, escape to third alternate timeline. Giant-pig-mantis-ruled medieval France has long been a favorite of VH3928 users.
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Problem: You accidentally/intentionally kill own mother/father, causing you never to be born, resulting in your killing of mother/father never having occurred, resulting in your being born; you spend rest of eternity trapped within infinite paradox loop.
Solution: Our researchers are working day and night to find the answer to this question. Please check back later for further information. Thank you for your interest in the VH3928 model.
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Problem: You are stranded in the past without plutonium to provide the 1.21 jiggawatts necessary to power your De Lorean's flux capacitor.
Solution: We at TimeCorp cannot stress enough the differences between real and fictional time travel. Authentic time travel is an infinitely more complicated and intricate process than its whimsical cinematic counterpart. You will need at least 4.3 jiggawatts of power.
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Problem: Due to a series of unquantifiable and inexplicable proportional likelihoods, your attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler causes you to be paralyzed from the neck down.
Solution: Premium users will find a large red "Panic" button in the rear of the VH3928. Rolling onto this button should return the timeline to normal. Users who decided to buy the budget model, which lacks the fine-leather interior and backlit console, will find that this button transports them to giant-pig-mantis-ruled medieval France.
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Problem: Time travel has led you to an alternate version of yourself.
Solution: AVOID MURDER. TimeCorp cannot stress this enough. If he/she is your younger version, then you will also cease to be. If it is your older version, then he/she already knows any trick you could try to pull, because he/she has already done it. If it is your evil version, try to avoid an endless struggle between good and evil, for these usually result in self-sacrifice. The best tactic is to team up and attack a common enemy with double force. If the doppelgänger is your younger self, go ahead, tell them the results of sports games. Everybody does.
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Problem: Time travel has led you to an alternate version of yourself identical in every way but gender.
Solution: It is natural to be curious. Go for it. It is TimeCorp's firm belief that there would not be anything gay about it. Even the complicated science of time travel is no match for the science of love.
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Problem: User has traveled to timeline where VH3928 does not exist; time machine subsequently broken.
Solution: Verify your surroundings. If you are in our current universe, and are able to survive until September 2003, come to the TimeCorp headquarters in Tulsa, Nebraska, and your machine will be replaced, free of charge. If you are in giant-pig-mantis-ruled medieval France, do not let the giant pig mantis see your teeth, as this will be taken as a sign of confrontation and may lead to a joust.
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Problem: Upon awaking, you find that your VH3928 has been stolen by Morlocks in a post-society horrorland.
Solution: Battle the Morlocks in an attempt to find your machine and also to free the Eloi. Afterward, travel forward enough to see the Earth returned to nothingness and life left to only a few meaningless creatures. Meanwhile, take part in an allegory of socialism.
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Problem: You have accidentally traveled to an alternate timeline where all women are large-breasted sex experts who are only truly happy when they are bringing pleasure to men.
Solution: Send directions.
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OTHER McSWEENEY'S FEATURES:
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Troubleshooting Guide for TimeCorp's VH3928-Model Time Machine By Jonathan Baude and J. Alex Boyd
A Small Box of Very Short Stories
I See No Other Option Than to Resign as Emily Dickinson's Rap-Battle Coach By Tyler Smith
Welcoming Remarks Made at a Literary Reading, 9/25/01 By John Hodgman
For Whom the Whistle Blows: A Physical-Education Instructor Contemplates His Own Mortality By Emily Axford
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