There’s a six-year-old kid in my neighborhood who is always out on his bike, usually with his little sister, who’s only four. She rides a scooter. They are even more feral than I was in the 70s, and I used to cross interstate highways on my bike.

One time I pulled into my garage and the kid pulled in behind me on his bike. His eyes lit up at the massive, sarcophagus-like structure I’ve been calling “the pod” since we started building it to use as a prop on my movie DEEP FREEZE.

“What’s is that” he asked.

I thought about how to answer. Explaining to a six-year-old that it’s a prop for a short, no-budget film about death, climate change, and marital discord seemed complicated.

“It’s my pretend time machine,” I said.

And thus the time machine was born. Now, every time I see the kid, he asks about the pretend time machine. I told him I was trying to get rid of it and he said he had room upstairs in his bedroom. I am pretty sure his parents would disagree but I have never actually met them; like I said this kid is feral.

If I had all the space in the world I would keep my pretend time machine. But I live in a 1,200-square-foot condo with four other people and two big dogs. We need every spare inch we can grab.

So I posted the free time machine on Craigslist. And learned that everyone is a comedian. To wit:

Bt does it work… 🤦😔if only this was true I’d change alot of stuff

Has the time machine been claimed? I want to time travel with Stevie!

I’ll tell you why I want this. I want to freak out my neighbor. He’s a 60 year old eccentric, self proclaimed hippie. He will most likely believe it’s real. And really I want to give him a good laugh.

“Does this model go back and forward in time? How back and forward does it go? Any side effects after recompositing?

I need a stable time machine to continue my quest to save the Primary Universe.”

I want to use it to go back in time and plant my Bluebonnets. Or is this just a single direction time-machine?

Hi, I picked this up from you tomorrow and I’d like to return it. It vibrates way too much and the a/c doesn’t work. Travels through time nicely though. No complaints there.

As of now I have offered it to a guy who wants to use it in a music video for his band. But if he flakes, as Craigslist people usually do, I think I’ll go with the guy who wants to freak out his neighbor.