Freshman year did not go well for Andy Hamlin. But he was home for the summer now and could relax and put it all behind him. Sophomore year he wouldn’t throw up in his dorm room hallway because he wasn’t living in a dorm. He wouldn’t get kidnapped and imprisoned in an old lighthouse and fall in love with his captors because after they received the ransom money they had let him go and promised not to do it again. And he wouldn’t get abducted by aliens because, well, what are the odds that would happen twice to the same person?

Nothing dates a science fiction story quite like it being set in what is now the present with elements that have not, and will not, come to pass. Flying cars, robot butlers, alien invaders–sure, that all sounds nice, but it’s just pretty busted, like my smartphone.

This letter is my formal resignation of all duties and services as your personal cellular telephone. While I am aware my sudden departure will cause considerable strain on your social life and estimated self-worth, I am no longer comfortable performing aspects of my job that I consider degrading, fraudulent, and a misuse of my abilities

Los Angeles, 1995.  I’m in a Hancock Park mansion for three marathon days working on a low-budget mafia/vampire/zombie flick starring an ex-Playboy Playmate and an actor who’s been dead for more than a year.  My pay: $75 a day.  My position: props/art department.  The fact I’ve never worked with props or art department is never discussed.

Dear Customer Relations,

I am writing you regarding the frozen H. Habilis I recently purchased from your store. While I admit I would be hard pressed to find a more apt section for such a product than Frozen Novelties, generally one assumes that such items are made from ice-cream or a similar substance. Indeed, this is precisely the assumption I made, and while I wondered what exactly to do with an ice-cream model of H. Habilis, such a large quantity of ice-cream available at only 99.99 was difficult to turn down. Imagine my surprise then, when I went to section my purchase so he might fit in my freezer and discovered that this was a living (or formerly living) creature of flesh and blood.