Hey! I'm back from the future! After I blog this I'm going to be smashing my time machine, because I'll be damned if I ever go back there! Due to the inverse square law and a terrible quirk involving quantum tunneling, time travel is only possible to the year 2094 and back, don't ask for technical details, I'll only make them up.

Anyway, holy crap!  Let me tell you about how it was....or is...or will be...oh whatever just check it out.

I bled in on a sunny sunday afternoon.  There were no cars.  That was the first sign of trouble.

The streets were empty.  Robots mowed perfectly manicured lawns.  There were no windmils, no solar panels, no telephone or electric lines.  Wireless fusion perhaps? Not sure, but the houses were all the same color. Grey.  WTF?

I was in the suburbs, walking on a street made of something midly squishy, also grey.  I expected some form of traffic as I headed for the city in the distance, but saw nothing for hours.

Finally, as I neared the outskirts of the city I saw the first person from the future since arriving. 

He had no arms.

His legs were short and stubby, cut off at the knees and replaced with a creepy segway sort of roller.  His head was completely hairless and his mouth had a weird device strapped over it.  His skin was grey, as were his clothes.

I was wearing my ususal tye die shirt with "Save The Endorphins," on it, along with blue jeans and sneakers....for sneaking.  Oddly enough I was the one who felt like the freak.

This rolling guy takes one look at me and freezes.  At first I think he's going to run....or roll as it were...but he just stares at me until a little electric shock shoots up from his collar and causes him to look away. 

Naturally I walked up to him.

"Um, Hi!  My name is Andy, I'm from 2009, just checking out the place. What's up?"

The man, or woman, it was hard to tell, shook his head momentarily as if confused, and then began to speak in a weird Hawking computer voice.

"I am 204E56G23 F.  Since you are from the past, and I do not wish to offend you or any person now or ever living, I will inform you, not that you are not informed, of the situation you seem to be ignorant of, or possibly ignoring, not that that's a bad thing.  Up is the opposite of down."

I caught him staring again. Apparently his collar did too because it shocked him.  This was far, far stranger than I'd expected.

"Um, ok. Let's start off with the number. Does everyone have those or is that just your thing?"

204 etc shook his head.

"It is for everyone. Name discrimiation laws prevent the use of names that are not randomly assigned, so as not to offend or abuse people on the basis of their name."

"Ooook.  Alright then, I have to ask then, what's with the mouth device? And, I'm sorry to ask, your arms and legs, were you in some sort of accident?"

"No, but thank you for expressing caring interest in my condition, please extend that to everyone.  Everyone has been fitted with content filters to prevent offensive language that could harm someone.  Arms are similarly removed to prevent unnecisary violence.  The legs are modified for the same reason.  Robowheels refuse to run over anyone, and robots serve our needs without the requirement for arms."

"I see.  So how did this all come about?"

"When they created the anti-violence initiative, at a debatable point in the past initiated by one party which must not be mentioned so as to not detriminent the other.  In any case they decided that guns had to go, so they collected them all up.  There were riots and shootings in those days.  It was bloody, but it was managed after just ten years. No more guns existed."

"But they decided that wasn't enough, I take it?"

"No. Kids were still beating eachother to death with pipes and boards, husbands were still stabbing wives, people were still getting mugged and raped.  Naturally, all damaging objects to include sporks were removed."

"How did that go over?"

"It was difficult, but the invention of non-solid all purpose yogurt in infinite flavors helped.  After that, people were still beating eachother up, kung fu masters and the like.  Anyone could learn to fight in those days, so they legislated away arms to prevent violence.  Legs followed quickly after."

"And I take it that didn't stop violence?"

"No, it stopped the violence, but only physical violence.  The problem is people were still causing harm by insulting eachother, so the content filters were created."

"Nice. But that wasn't enough was it? I mean, dude, you're grey."

"You're right, not that anyone else is wrong.  To prevent anyone feeling bad over race, religion, or color preference, all people were given skin treatments and all fabrics and paints were changed to a neutral grey.  Religion cannot be discussed through the filters and all symbols of it cannot be displayed save for in our own eye contact projectors."

"Cool on the contacts, but woah! So you can't insult me even if you tried, or harm me even if you wanted to?"

"No."

"So what if I called you a rolling, ugly freak boy retard in a unitard?"

"I'm afraid you'll have to rephrase your statement, as my hearing aids have filtered out something offensive you may have said."

"Ok, what if I did this then?" I said, pushing him over.  He bounced back up, blinked a few times and quickly rolled away.

I laughed in horrible glee.  I was a god here!  I ran into the city. There were thousands of them, all rolling around speaking very kindly to eachother.  Everything was grey.

It seemed an armless society was a polite society after all.  I decided to see how many I could tip over before I got caught.  I knew at this point I wouldn't be back, so it's not like I'd have have to worry about reprecussions.

I got up to 150 down and rolling away before the cops showed up.  Well, I should say surgical armed, hovering robots with laser eyes and a ready to go content filter attachment for my mouth.

Needless to say I hit the return button on my watch seconds before they closed in on me. 

Now, if you'll excuse me I'm going to go smash my time machine and start chain smoking.  I'll probably die long long before this ever happens but I'm not taking any chances.

Sleep well, and have fun with your arms while you still have them!

TEC NOTE: This would have included clever pics of armless people, robots and possibly a puppy or two but my uploader's not working from this stupid hotel.  Hope you enjoyed it anyway!