“Hey Hank, what’s up?” Carl asked, annoyed that he was awakened from a post-lunch nap at his desk.
“Hey Carl? There’s some guy downstairs who says he’s here to talk to you about the Pop Gs?”
“What?!” Carl sounded flabbergasted. “No one knows about that launch. It’s supposed to be top secret!!! Crap, I wonder if I’m under FBI surveillance again…what does he look like?”
The security guard turned his back to the visitor waiting in the lobby. He covered his mouth with his hand and whispered into the handset so the visitor couldn’t hear what he said…
”Uhh, he’s kind of eccentric? British accent. He’s wearing lipstick and eyeliner. His hair is wild and unkempt and dyed black with some other weird colors mixed in. Kinda dressed like a romantic poet or like a swashbuckler? But also wearing huge shoulder pads for some reason? He looks like he should be in a music video. He says he met you at some club this past weekend called The Rum Runner? I can escort him out if you want…”
“Oh sh*t,” Carl replied. The events of the past weekend were still a bit of a blur, but his hazy, nap-fuzzy mind started to put the pieces back together. He had gotten drunk, borrowed the company time machine, and accidentally traveled back to Birmingham, UK 1982. He had popped into the famous bar, The Rum Runner, for a drink. In the haze of fog and smoke on the dance floor, he totally fell in like with a New Wave rando under the disco lights. The stranger was impressed with the wild, crackpot tales of the flamingo CEO from the future. Carl bragged about how he was going to create a line of devastatingly hip, angular, fashion-forward frames and call them Pop Gs. He made big promises that he would even make a pair of edgy
all-black Pop G frames with
black lenses and even went as far as to swear he would name the pair of sunnies after the handsome stranger.
The two were making out in the time machine when Carl accidentally transported them back to a baseball field near goodr headquarters. They fell asleep under the stars in the cool night air of 2023. A couple of hours later, Carl woke up shivering. The stranger was sleeping soundly on third base. Careful not to wake him, Carl wandered home and passed out in his warm bed next to his on-again-off-again-but-mostly-off-again fiancé, Turlana. He had completely forgotten all about this adventure until now.
“Send him up, Hank,” Carl responded sternly.
A few moments later, the stranger appeared at Carl’s office door, disheveled and completely shaken up from the past few days of trying to navigate this strange world. Everyone he had encountered thought he was insane! Not just because of how he was dressed, but he’d never heard of the internet! “What do you mean there aren’t any public phones?! What do you mean the frozen yogurt shop doesn’t allow you to pay cash?! What in God’s name is a selfie?!” He was getting hysterical. Not wanting anyone in the office to witness a “scene,” Carl promptly ushered him back into the company time machine.
“But what about all the promises you made? About us getting married? About us creating a new style of frames called the Pop G and naming a pair after me?! You said we were soulmates!” The stranger cried. Mascara-stained tears streamed down his face.
“Yeah, yeah! YES. To all of those things. I promise I’ll come back for you, I just have a few little things I need to tidy up here in the future before we can make those things happen!” Carl lied, brushing away black, greasy tears.
He dropped the stranger off at The Rum Runner and decided to get the hell out of Dodge. As the gull-wing door of the time machine started to close, Carl blew kisses and promised, “Be back for you soon!!!” But as soon as the door was closed, he mumbled to himself, “Psh, delusional much?! It’s like these people have never heard of a one-night stand. Talk about a stage-five clinger. He did have incredible style, though, didn’t he? Too bad I never got his actual name. You know what? I’m going to call this all-black pair of Pop Gs New Wave Renegade in honor of this whole experience.”
He stopped on his way home to get a dozen roses for Turlana.
“Carl, they’re beautiful! How was work today, hun?” she inquired.
“Oh, you know. Just another day at the office!” Carl quipped.
