A Letter from A Desperate, Time Traveling Housewife From 1952

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Dear God,

If I was ever a bad wife or committed an unkind act, I want to ask your forgiveness so that you will send me back to my real life in 1952. Yes, I did sometimes feel vaguely unfulfilled. But whenever thoughts about wanting more from life emerged, I simply pushed them way, way down and started cocktail hour a little early. 

Was it because of those sinful afternoon martinis that I woke up spontaneously in the year 2020? Or is this the version of H-E-Double Toothpicks (forgive my potty mouth) that you invented especially for me?

I will catalogue my suffering and repent in hopes that you will have mercy on me.

My Husband Works From Home

When I woke up in my new life, I soon discovered that the world was suffering from what they called a global pandemic. We spent most of our time in the house, and when we did go out, we were required to wear surgical masks.

But it’s not the thought of a deadly virus that makes me shudder. It’s the fact that my husband works from home. All day, every day.

Which means I am picking up after him all day, every day. And I can’t even remember the last time he shaved or put on decent clothes. 

One time I walked into his study (I mean home office) and found him naked as a jaybird. I was so shocked that I spilled coffee all over his desk and scalded our cat Jinx.

But even that wasn’t enough to deter him. Sometimes when the children aren’t around, he even wanders downstairs bare naked and sits on the couch. 

When I tell him that it isn’t sanitary, he tells me it’s only natural and that I should probably see a therapist about my complexes.

So I’m the crazy one? Hey, just because my mother had to have shock therapy doesn’t make me insane.

But I digress. What I want to say, Lord, is that I am sorry for all the times I complained that my husband came home late for dinner or took too many business trips.

I now realize it simply isn’t natural for men to spend so much time at home. Apparently, it causes them to fall into a caveman-like state from which they can only be rescued by working in a real office building.

Please send me back to 1952, where I sent my husband happily off to work every day and almost never had to see him naked. If you don’t, I’m not sure I can ever let people sit on my couch again without wincing. 

My Children Are Martians

They say a woman’s work is never done, and when you have kids, that goes double. But at least the children I had back in 1952 were actual humans.

The bizarre creatures I live with barely speak, and when they do, it’s in a language that I don’t understand with words like FOMO, Fauci ouchie and fleek. They almost never take their eyes off their portable phones. Not even at family meals where no one speaks or makes eye contact. 

My own mother used to say that children should be seen and not heard, but these mute changelings take silence to a whole new level. And since they have those earbud thingies in all the time, you can only communicate with them by texting (which I still don’t quite have the hang of yet).

And getting them to do chores? Forget it. I asked my teenager to clean the bathroom one day, and she texted me that I would need to transfer $25 to her Bitcoin account first. 

They say space travel is now possible, and I suspect that these lazy, childlike aliens may have snuck in from some other galaxy. Of course, I can’t say that out loud, or I may end up in electric shock therapy. 

Lord, please forgive me for scolding my real children for talking too loudly at dinner back in 1952. That racket would sound like music to my ears now (and at least they washed the dinner dishes without pay).

I’m Afraid I Might Accidentally Kill My Weakling Kids

It’s simply not natural that children never go outside. When I encouraged little Jayden to take a bike ride (who came up with that crazy name, by the way?), he told me he lost his helmet and that it wasn’t safe. Are these little aliens so soft in the head they can’t fall off a bike without dying?

When I put Brittany in the front seat of the car for a quick trip to the grocery store, she asked if I was trying to kill her and started crying. I tried to calm her down with a candy bar, but she yelled that she had a peanut allergy and asked if I was trying to kill her again. 

I was so agitated that I lit up a cigarette, at which point she shouted, “Secondhand smoke kills, mommy!” 

My modern-day husband already told me about that, but I didn’t care. It was either light up or give her a spanking. And I didn’t want her to call the authorities on me with that little thing she calls a smartwatch. 

Again, God, I know you are putting me through this trial for a reason. But I’m begging you to send me back to my real family in 1952 before I accidentally kill one of these feeble beings who are supposed to be my children.

I swear I will never punish my real kids for shooting each other with their BB guns again. 

Food Isn’t Food in the Future

Upon serving my first tuna casserole in 2020, my family looked horrified, and my teenager informed me that she was a vegan. I thought that was some kind of religion, but she explained that she doesn’t eat anything that comes from an animal. (But seriously, if cows and chickens weren’t put here for us to eat, Lord, then why do they exist?)

Brittany then piped up that she was lactose intolerant, and Jayden told me that he had sensitivity to gluten. My husband is on a diet that he calls Paleo. I had no idea what any of that meant at the time and am still suspicious that they may be messing with me. 

Later I was sent to the grocery store searching for organic vegetables, gluten-free bread and oat milk to pour over sugar-free cereal. I have no idea why regular food is so bad for you in the future, and I don’t have a recipe for vegan curry. 

My mother did not prepare me for this. I suppose I will have to buy some new cookbooks.

Again God, I am asking your forgiveness for sending my real kids to bed early when they didn’t eat their canned green beans. I didn’t know how good I had it in 1952. Please send me back to the days of meatloaf and sloppy joes, and I promise I will never get angry when the children eat ice cream before dinner again.

Date Night

It seems that my future husband began to notice how frazzled I was because, at one point, he suggested that we needed a date night. In my world, that meant a steak dinner followed by champagne cocktails and dancing at the club. So I put on a pair of silk stockings and my best dress and got ready for a night of romance.

You can only imagine how dismayed I was when he left the house in a pair of what he calls “skinny jeans” and took me to a parking lot where people were serving food off a truck. And this is what passes for romance in the future? 

There was no dancing, but there was music. If you can call it that. It was filled with vulgar lyrics like “ass” and “ho” (pardon my French), but I did my best to put on a good face as I choked down a supposedly gourmet taco with a large amount of Coke (which doesn’t taste the same in the future).

Despite the low-rent quality of the date, my 2020 husband expected the same thing that my 1952 husband expected at the end of the night — sexual relations.

So I did my womanly duty while I made a grocery list in my head and stared up at the ceiling. Afterward, I threw up my taco. That salsa gave me indigestion. 

Lord, please forgive me for complaining that my 1952 husband didn’t take me out enough. I’ll take a quarterly steak dinner over a weekly taco truck any day.

Girl Talk

The next morning something in the manner of my husband seemed off, and it was unsettling me. So I went over to have a chat with my neighbor Jessica. She broke out the red wine, and eventually I was tipsy enough to talk to her about my “date night.”

Once she heard the whole story, she concluded that she knew just what I needed and brought out a magazine called Cosmopolitan. It was filled with a bunch of lewd sex talk and kept mentioning something called an orgasm.

When I confessed to not knowing what that was, she made me order a little machine online. 

I know what an orgasm is now. But, Lord, please forgive me for liking my vibrator better than either one of my husbands. 

Erotica and Gummies

Eventually, the stress of being a wife, teacher, maid, (vegan) cook, chauffeur and mother to an alien brood was starting to take its toll. So I decided to relax with something nice on the television one night.  

I watched a program called Bridgerton which turned out to be porn. Then I watched what they call a reality TV show which turned out to be porn on the beach. Later my husband suggested we watch Game of Thrones because I had never seen it. That was medieval porn that involved incest and a little person having sex with prostitutes.

What has the world come to, I ask you? I am shocked at what they play on television these days. Shocked and also filled with shame because I kind of like it. I also have a better idea of what my current husband expects from date night.

Which is why I beg you to send me back to my old life in 1952, Lord. Before I become addicted to pleasure or accidentally maim or kill one of these child substitutes. 

Mostly when I thought of the future, I imagined flying cars and a robot maid. But I never imagined being a house slave to a bunch of martians who never leave the house. So again, Lord, I beg your forgiveness if I didn’t appreciate my former life enough. 

I hope this letter will help you to absolve me for whatever sins I’ve committed and that one of these days I will wake up in 1952 again. In the meantime, I’m going to take one of those gummy candies my husband gives me to calm down and watch The Real Housewives of New Jersey to figure out how modern-day housewives should conduct themselves. 

Thank you for hearing my petition. 

Your now repentant 1952 housewife,

Harriet 

P.S. Did I mention my husband wants me to go back to school and get a job? Like my neighbor Jess says, “Not until we get equal pay, honey.” The nerve!

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