Lost Time Incident

Dear Friend,

Thank you for inviting me to your party. I'm very sorry that I was not able to attend.

As you know, I don't have a car, which makes it difficult to attend any events that are further away than my stumpy legs can carry me. I was not able to arrange a ride to your house, and I don't know the first thing about how to hot-wire a car, plus I'm not sure the party justifies the risk of arrest, should I get caught. But I want you to know that I tried up until the very last minute to arrange to be there. I priced rental cars and cabs and ferries. I checked how much my bank charges in overdraft fees. On the night of, I stuck my thumb out and attempted to hitchhike, even using what I thought would be an eye-catching "kissy face" that I see all the kids using at club parties on Facebook. All without success.

Such was my dedication that I waited these last two weeks after the party before writing to apologize for not making it to your party, because if time travel is discovered and made usable within those two weeks, I intended to go back in time and try again to attend the party using what I've learned in the last two weeks. Which, sadly, probably would not have helped. I haven't really learned anything.

It then occurred to me that actually, if time travel is invented at ANY POINT during my life time, I could always go back and attend your party, so there is some chance that I was there. If that was the case, then please disregard the apology above.

Follow up:

But since you didn't contact me to let me know how good it was to see me there, I have to assume time travel will not be discovered in my lifetime. Unless, that is, my future self told you not to contact me after the party for fear of paradox, altering the time line, etc. Perhaps my future self told you something about his past that you can't share with me. I guess it's probably best that you don't tell me one way or the other if I was there.

Or how about this: Hit "Like" on this post, and that will communicate either: "Thanks for coming to my party at some point in your future, when you incidentally will look very healthy and handsome" or, "I found this post amusing." I'm pretty sure that won't make the universe explode.