The Time Traveler

The other day at Target, I saw a girl that I believe got trapped in 1999 and just got released back into present day. For number one, she looked confused. Confusion, as we all know, is a common trait to bear when transported quickly between different eras. But that is not what alerted me of the fact that she didn’t belong. My spider senses went berserk when she reached for a can of soup from the shelf and her wrist became exposed. There, resting snugly on her eerily white flesh was a knit bracelet bearing the letters, “WWJD”. Immediately, I went into Robert Langdon mode, trying to proof-positive my first aware sighting of a time traveler.

Shoes: generic brand. This made things a lot harder as this is a classic sign of many things, just ask Forrest Gump. But the model told a different story – clogs. Clog-style shoes of all different materials were very popular in the late 90’s, early 2000’s. Not to say that they aren’t comfortable, or look bad, just more evidence of a rift existing.

Hair: straight down, square-layered – the Rachel! The Rachel is a haircut made famous by a television character on the program Friends. Friends aired during primetime television from 1994 to 2004. This haircut was from the late 90’s. Things were getting weird!

Sometimes brands are better indicators of era-based styles than the styles themselves. I was desperately trying to make out a name on something, but was coming up dry and probably being less sleuth-like than Langdon. The pants and shirt were relatively timeless; boot-cut jeans, conservative top with ¾ sleeves. Shoot!

But we’ve got the bracelet, the haircut and the shoes in our corner. Now, what’s in the basket? Not sure if this would tell me anything, but unwilling to miss a clue, I peered into the red with gray handled basket. Some general hygiene products, a couple frozen dinners, the CD “Millennium” by the Backstreet Boys…haha NO! I wish – that would seal the deal. There was in fact, nothing in the cart to further prove my theory.

Feeling like I needed more than three affirmatives to prove this woman a time traveler, I grabbed my coconut rice and checked out.