Mayonnaise and the Universe

It started with a knock at the door by a man holding an empty mayonnaise jar and overflowing pockets of ketchup packets. It was Jimbo, who was to become my bestest friend ever in the whole world, but I didn’t know that at the time. What I knew was this sweating, slightly balding man with thick black glasses sliding down the sweat on his nose was hurriedly saying something about condiments.

“I live next door,” he explained. “I’ve run out of mayonnaise.” He went past me, peering into doorways looking for my kitchen which he found before he’d even managed to blurt out “I was wondering if I could borrow some.”

If I’d had time to offer it, I would have said it was fine to take what he needed, but I didn’t have the opportunity as he had already emptied my entire jar of mayonnaise into his empty jar and had moved onto my spice rack, checking each jar and mumbling to himself. I kept thinking I should say something, something to indicate that this stranger didn’t have my permission to ransack my kitchen and help himself to my food, but this was the first of many times when I just went along with whatever Jimbo said or did.

“So, you’re cooking? having a spicy burger?”

“Cooking? No. No, no,” he said, shaking his head. “Uh-uh, nope.” Then he pushed his glasses up and looked at me in utter seriousness and said “Mayonnaise is necessary for time travel.”

I still don’t know why I didn’t throw him out of my house and call the police, but instead, I followed him to his house. I can’t explain it, but when Jimbo talks, you just know that he’s the most honest guy in the universe. As it turned out, he was the most honest guy in the universe and in all time, too. He lived next door, but he didn’t come from next door.

I don’t know why I didn’t turn and run when he showed me what he was working on in that old shed behind his house. But it was how he spoke - quietly, matter of factly, with authority - it was as if I had no option but to believe him, no will to resist his truth even though it conflicted with every fact of science and space that I had ever learned in my high school science class.

And so that’s how I ended up spending two years of my life with Jimbo in that shed, working to help him get home again. Once or twice, I tried to convince him that 21st century Earth was not such a bad place. I mean, where else in time or space could you get ketchup and mayonnaise in little packets for free at every fast food place in town? But as he told me of his life, his travels and how the universe really worked, the meaning of everything in my life came into focus. I moved from a grey and dim corner of the universe and stepped into a brilliant and overwhelming illumination of the mind.

Jimbo left 5 years ago, but still, whenever there is a knock on the door, I can’t help hoping that he will be there on the other side when I open it. I’ve got a dozen jars of mayonnaise in the fridge, just in case.