Glass Time Capsule
June 6, 2024 – Wilmington, Delaware, USA
The garage door had barely closed when Joey Stellato’s phone rang. It was his mom. He had spent a frustrating day at the collision repair shop dealing with unreasonable customers. As he contemplated answering his phone, he heard his toddler crying on the other side of the door into his house. Did he want to deal with a crying kid or listen to his mom, who probably wanted to gush about something his younger sister had done? He froze on the cement doorstep before finally tapping his phone.
“Hi Mom.”
“You home from work?”
“Just barely.”
“You have a fun day?”
“Fixing other people’s cars and listening to them complain? Sure, it was real fun,” Joey replied in a sarcastic voice.
“But you’re so good at it.”
“Fixing cars or listening to people complain?”
“Both.”
“Sure, Mom. There’s a million other things I’d rather be doing.”
“I know, I know. That’s why you have all your hobbies after work. Like your football leagues, and barbecuing, and flying your drones.”
Joey replied by complaining how his wife, Katie, was always on his case about spending money on drones. “She thinks every dollar I make should go to the mortgage.”
“Katie has a lot to worry about. Her intentions are always good.”
“Anyways, what do you need, Mom?”
The tone of Joey’s mom’s voice grew more excited as she said, “Remember when you were ten years old and you and your little friends buried a time capsule in the yard? You said you would dig it up in twenty years. Well, I’ve been counting and it will be exactly twenty years this weekend.
“Time capsule? I don’t remember what you’re talking about.”
“It was a big glass jar. We buried it next to the maple tree. It took you boys all day to dig the hole.”
“Oh, right. Yeah, now I remember.”
“So I thought it would be nice for you and your friends to come dig it out. It would be fun for all of you. And I don’t get to see you enough, anyway.”
Joey rolled his eyes. “I’m not sure if Doug and Sean will be up for it. I haven’t talked to Doug in over a year. Even longer for Sean.”
“Call them. See what they say.”
“I’ll think about it. Let me talk to you later. I’ve gotta get into the house.”
Joey hung up with little intention of contacting his friends. But as he helped put his children to bed, his curiosity over the time capsule deepened. He was pretty sure Doug and Sean still lived nearby and getting together might make for a few laughs.
Joey called Doug first. They exchanged friendly greetings of “How’s it going?” and “What you been up to?” Then the bitterness in Doug’s voice became obvious. He described how his painful divorce was finally over. He was underpaid and living with his parents. It was more than Joey wanted to hear.
“So, you remember when we were kids and buried a time capsule in my yard?”
“No.”
“I think it was a glass pickle jar. A big one. We put things inside it. And we dug until we had blisters on our hands.”
“Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I do remember.”
“Leave it to my mom to keep track of when we’re supposed to dig it up. We said twenty years later. According to her, we’re supposed to do it this weekend.”
“No kidding?”
“You interested in visiting my parents place again? Take a look at what we buried?”
“Why not? I got nothing else going on.”
After the call with Doug, Joey immediately dialed Sean’s number. He was surprised Sean answered so quickly.
“Can you talk for a minute? Sounds like you’re at a gym,” Joey said.
“I am. Just got done teaching a spin class.”
Joey explained the time capsule, and after some prompting, Sean clearly remembered the day they buried it. He was obviously pumped to be part of the retrieval.
Joey arrived at his parents’ home half an hour before the scheduled dig. He told his wife, Katie, he was helping his mom with one of her projects and Katie was content not to join him. The front of the little house he grew up in looked like the others in the neighborhood. Not apparent from the street was the oversized backyard. Until they turned into teenagers and discovered video games, that backyard was the center of the universe for Joey and his friends. His mom encouraged as much creative play time as possible.
As soon as Joey got out of his car, his mom jogged out the front door and wrapped him in a hug. She was much rounder and shorter than he was, so he felt most of the squeezing around his stomach. Aggressively joyful greetings were a part of her personality, but she typically allowed Joey to first make it into the house. A curbside greeting meant she was especially excited about something surprising or unusual.
“I’ve got a shovel ready,” she said, with the words bursting from her mouth like fireworks. “And I think I marked the right spot.”
She pulled Joey into the house where they bumped into his dad. He was tall and lanky and did not like surprises or anything out of the ordinary.
“You got your friends coming over, huh?” he said. “You better cover up any holes you make in the yard. And put the grass back the way you found it.”
Joey and his mom ignored the grouchiness and sauntered into the kitchen where Joey picked at the cookies and brownies arrayed on a counter.
Doug and Sean arrived almost simultaneously. Doug carried a loaf of sourdough bread and handed it to Joey’s mom. “Here you go, Mrs. Stellato. This is from my mom.”
“She didn’t have to do that,” Joey’s mom replied.
“She loves giving stuff away,” Doug said.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t bring anything,” Sean said with a sheepish smile.
“Oh, you didn’t have to,” Joey’s mom replied to Sean with a wave of her hand. “Now let me get a good look at you. I haven’t seen you for years, but you’re just as handsome as when you were in high school and driving the girls wild.”
Joey smiled as he took a good look at Sean, too. His mom was obviously exaggerating. Sean was not overweight, but his high-school-athlete build was gone. His thick high-school-hair had also abandoned him.
Doug and Sean felt obligated to catch Joey’s mom up on their recent life stories. When she was satisfied, she announced it was time to find their treasure. They traipsed through the house to the backyard and found the Red Maple tree next to the fence line. It was bigger than Doug and Sean remembered. A shovel leaned against its trunk.
“I’ve already marked where I think the jar is,” Joey’s mom said. “You might want to dig a wide hole just to be sure you can find it.”
Joey’s dad, who had also wandered out to the yard, grumbled about making too big of a hole.
After comparing memories of where they had dug twenty years earlier, the three friends took turns with the shovel, scooping out chunks of soil. As the dirt pile grew, they speculated over how deep they would need to go. They tried to restrain their emotions, but the collective anticipation was obvious. Even Doug, who looked mostly sour when he arrived, turned giddy.
Joey was on the shovel when he hit the glass jar’s lid. To avoid any damage, the excavation switched to a more careful phase in which the boys dug with their hands. As their fingernails filled with dirt, they tried to remember what they put in the jar.
“Was it toys?” Sean asked.
“It must have been,” Doug replied. “When we were ten, those were the most valuable things we had. We would have wanted to save them.”
The big jar finally pulled free from the hole and Sean lifted it onto level ground, wiping at the glass sides. “Okay, okay, I’m gonna open the lid,” he cried.
Sean strained his hands and arms to remove the lid. Then he pulled items from the jar, one by one. The first thing out was a small stuffed tiger.
“That’s a Webkinz!” Joey shouted. “Remember those? The stuffed animal matched the virtual one on your computer account.”
Of course everyone remembered. They also remembered the Tamagotchi, an electronic pet on a key chain. Sean pulled out bags of Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh! cards and Doug wondered if any of them might be valuable.
“Whose were they?” Sean asked. “Maybe we should just divide them up evenly.”
A sack of hard candy and bag of microwave popcorn emerged next from the jar. Joey guessed they wanted to see if their favorite treats would survive a twenty-year hibernation.
“Guys, the only things left are three envelopes,” Sean announced. “They look like they have our names on them.”
“I know what those are,” Joey’s mom interjected. “You wrote letters to yourselves in the future. When you were ten years old, being thirty was the oldest you could imagine. That’s how you picked the twenty years to wait.”
Sean handed out the letters and the three friends stood dumbfounded as they turned them over in their hands. “Well, we’ve gotta read them,” Sean concluded.
“Out loud or in private?” Doug asked.
“Out loud. C’mom, they’ve gotta be funny,” Sean replied.
Doug ripped into his envelope first. He pulled out the paper inside and smirked. “I think my handwriting’s gotten worse.”
“Read it,” Joey said.
“Dear Future Doug. If you’re reading this, it’s the year 2024. The world will probably be way different.” The letter continued with ten-year-old Doug making a list of things he thought might be happening in twenty years before getting more personal. “I don’t know exactly what you’ll be doing but I know you’ll still be best friends with Joey and Sean. You’ll be living in the biggest house anywhere with lots of staircases and glass doors.”
Doug stopped reading. He stayed silent for a few minutes before adding with a frown, “That’s pretty much it.”
Joey’s dad had remained quiet through most of the digging and jar opening. Now, he could not resist making a comment. “That sure didn’t happen the way you thought. Aren’t you back home with your parents?”
Joey’s mom quickly chimed in. “No, I think things happened exactly like he predicted. His parents moved out of this neighborhood into the most beautiful home I’ve ever seen. Dozens of glass doors, like Doug wanted. And that’s where he’s living, right? He could do a whole lot worse.”
Doug rolled his eyes before chuckling. “I guess. If that’s the way you want to look at it.”
“I do,” Joey’s mom replied. “Who’s next?”
Sean reluctantly raised his hand and opened his letter. “Dear Future Sean.” Like Doug’s, his letter speculated about what would be happening in the world before concentrating on himself. “You’ll still be friends with Joey and Doug. I know you’ll be some kind of professional athlete. Maybe football, baseball, or basketball. It doesn’t matter which one as long as you’re a pro.” Sean summed up his feelings about the letter by shaking his head in disappointment.
“So, what team are you playing for these days?” Joey’s dad called out with a snigger.
“Ha, ha,” Sean sarcastically replied.
“Wait now, this one also turned out true,” Joey’s mom insisted. “You work in a gym training people. You run, you ride a bike, you lift weights around. And you get paid for it. That sounds like a professional athlete to me.”
Sean smiled and shrugged his shoulders. “Ah, Mrs. Stellato, you can make anything sound good.”
Joey looked down at his envelope and said, “I guess I have to read mine.” He cautiously tore open the seal and began reading. His first sentences sounded a lot like those of his friends. Then he reached his predictions for his own future.
“In 2024, you’ll be a pilot and fly around all day.” Joey shook his head and sighed.
“A pilot? You never said you wanted to be a pilot,” his dad blurted out. “You could have gone to flight school.”
Joey rolled his eyes to indicate he had talked about it plenty of times but did not want to rehash his former dreams.
At the same time, the smile on Joey’s mom’s face grew so large it practically swallowed her face. “Don’t you see? This one came true, too! Your drones! You fly them almost every day. And you’re so good at it. You said yourself that it takes as much skill as flying around a big airplane.”
Joey shrugged his shoulders and said, “Well, kind of . . .”
“If we look at the jar through your mom’s eyes, we were pretty good fortune tellers,” Sean concluded.
“Or a bunch of losers if you look through my dad’s eyes,” Joey added.
Joey’s dad grumbled and said, “You losers better put the dirt back in the hole before you leave.” Then he walked away.
The three friends stuffed their letters into their pockets and then negotiated on how to divide the loot from the jar. Joey’s smiling mom stood watching the entire time. When the boys grew curious about whether the popcorn would still pop, she waved for them to come into the kitchen and try.
“And I’ll make some better food than popcorn. Maybe you can play some games. Or think about burying another time capsule. Stay as long as you like. I tell Joey he doesn’t come over enough.”
As they sat around the kitchen enjoying Joey’s mom’s chicken cutlets, Doug’s grin returned. “I forgot how much I liked this place,” he said. “Something about it just makes me feel good.”
“Maybe we could get together kind of regular,” Sean suggested to Joey. “As long as your mom was okay with it.”
“I’m sure she could love it more than anything in the world,” Joey replied.
“And maybe we could pick a time when your dad’s not around,” Doug added. Joey laughed and said, “The three of us coming over would give him a great excuse to get away from the house.”
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