Hey Mom,

Guess what, I accidentally became a “Ralphie the Super Lurcher” through time! 🕒🐾 Ended up fetching more adventure than bones with a posse of canine pals in a car that’s more time machine than fetch-friend. Zoomed from our sunny Spencerville to the neon ’80s and back, all before dinner. The future’s fun, but I’m sticking to chasing balls, not decades. Give Moosey a squeeze for me!

Wags and woofs,
Ralphie 🐶⏳

I’d never fancied myself a time traveler, but there I was, careening through the epochs with the kind of velocity that’d give my track days a run for their money. The car – a madcap invention with more wires than a Poodle Pond telecommunications tower – was supposed to be a mere vehicle for fetching bones. But life, much like a well-timed leap to catch a frisbee, can thrust you into the most unexpected of orbits.

It began on a perfectly typical Spencerville afternoon. I had been lounging on the freshly mowed grass of Husky Hill, the sun warming my spotted fur, when the universe decided I was due for a change of scenery. “Come see what we’ve cooked up, Ralphie!” Benjie had barked, his grin as wide as the river that runs through Golden Retriever River. Graeme and Luna, always up for a spectacle, had scampered behind us, all legs and laughter.

I should have known when we skidded to a halt in front of The Howling Husky Hardware Store that a simple bone-fetching machine would not suffice for the collie’s overly ambitious plans. “It’s a car,” I said rather blandly, my excitement hidden beneath a heap of skepticism, like a bone buried too deep.

“Not just any car,” Benjie corrected with a wag of his tail. “A time-traveling car! Just imagine the possibilities, Ralphie! Fetching the oldest bones, meeting the legendary dogs of yore…”

I admit, the idea had a certain piquant appeal, but like a cat on a windowsill, it was precarious. Giving the contraption a cautious sniff, I could nearly taste the tang of adventure… and perhaps a faint whiff of danger.

Before I could say ‘Moosey,’ who, by the way, was safely tucked under my leg, Benjie had started the engine, and the insides of the machine began to hum. Sparks flew like fireflies at a summer barbecue.

My thoughts went to my last meal at Paws On The Grill – should have indulged in the pork steak – as the world outside the windows bent, blurred, and reshaped itself around us.

One moment we’re in Spencerville, the next we were zooming past decades as one might bound across backyards. Luna yelped, a sound mixing shock and awe, as flapper dresses and fedoras gave way to the neon glow of disco and boomboxes.

I won’t lie, hurtling through time feels much like chasing your tail – dizzying, a bit pointless, yet strangely captivating.

The car halted with the abruptness of a squirrel evading capture. We’d landed squarely (if inadvertently) in a scene that dripped with the ’80s – oversized boomboxes and all. It was bedlam and wonder, like fields brimming with sausages, and yet no less alarming.

Humans bustled past, oblivious to the canine out-of-towners who gaped at their strange fashion choices. I glanced at my friends, their eyes as round as Pupperoni Pizza’s famed pepperoni slices.

“We need to go back,” I barked authoritatively. After all, the advent of tennis balls – that much I could stand missing, but not my parents. Not the certain reunion that Spencerville lore had promised us.

With that, another twist of knobs and pull of levers, another streak through decades like a rapid game of fetch across the fabric of time, and Spencerville loomed back into view.

We cheered (well, barked) our remarkable return. We recounted tales of our time-trapped expedition over slices at Pupperoni Pizza, regaling puzzled listeners with a story to span the ages.

As we nestled in the comforting routine of our small town, I hugged Moosey a bit tighter, grateful for the stillness of “now.”

I might have the soul of a speedster, but some roads – or in this case, temporal pathways – are best left untraveled. With every beat of my heart and wag of my tail, I am firmly planted in the present, a present that shimmers with the glow of Spencerville’s carefree days and the warmth of a future reunion.

But for now, as I lie here recounting the harrowing tale of the accidental time-traveling greyhound, I find that adventures are best served with a side of whimsy and a steadfast return ticket to the comfort of one’s own epoch.

The End.