Which Historical Event to Visit?

Pat, if you could go back in time and witness any historical event you wanted and then come right back to current time which would it be? Keeping in mind you wouldn’t be able to change the event at all. You would just be an invisible ghost observing the situation.

Pat:  Can’t we go forward? I’d kinda’ like to do that. Less troublesome. I just sort of want to know more about the ground rules before we play this game. That okay?

Although...as a little teaser, I’m thinking it’d be cool to witness something BIG, and I’m kinda’ thinking the wheel is where it’s at. Whoever did that must have been REALLY psyched at the progress they’d made. And I bet they sounded a lot like this guy:

Listen to my sheer bliss here

Christian:  I guess you could go forward but how will you know ahead of time if the event is historical or not, since it hasn’t happened yet?

Pat:  Ooh! Good one. Umm...I think it’s more like I’d be leaving near-history and venturing forth into history-yet-to-be. Y’know...like when Scrooge got visited by all those ghosts. It’d be like that.

Christian: Can you give me an example event?

Pat:  Duh! No...hasn’t happened yet.

Oh, wait...do I get to invent an event to go to? Is this like that “actualization” stuff they do at new-age retreats? Okay...I’ll play!

I want to go forward to that time when, my body having become perfectly toned, I’m elected “Prime Model of the Human Specimen” by every citizen on earth.

Christian: OK, you are completely missing the point of this so I’ll go.

I think I would want to witness the discovery of fire. Imagine how excited they must have been. Although most likely they immediately tried to eat it but I bet they were still pretty excited.

It would be interesting to see if they discovered it by accident or was there some thought put into it. Was it a man or a woman that discovered it?  And how many people were involved? Was it one person or a group effort? If it was a group, I bet they all had a blast celebrating afterwards. Except for maybe that one guy that tried to eat it.

Plus they probably thought wizards were involved or something so it would be fun to laugh and point at them because of that.

The invention of the wheel is an OK choice but that probably just consisted of some dude tripping over a log and noticing it rolled. Big whoop-de-doo.

Pat:  Okay, now I think I get it. And I kinda’ want to play. Is it too late? It was always too late when I finally wanted to play whatever was going down on the playground. That is, until someone told me about the game, “Throw-The-Ball-At-Pat”.

Umm...along the lines of your wheel event, I think I’d like to be a witness to the precise moment when the first ever SHOE was invented. I like the idea of someone saying, “Oh, I just never thought to put anything THERE! It feels so much nicer now!”

Christian: That seems like it couldn’t be any more boring.

You realize the first shoe was probably even more primitive than this:

(source)

The person that “discovered” it probably just got their feet tangled up in some vines and decided to leave them on their feet instead of going through the effort to untangle them. It was probably the same dude that tripped over a log and “discovered” the wheel.

I think you need to pick another event.

Pat:  Well, I think that shoe looks kinda’ cool...like something I might wear to Burning Man. Totally carbon neutral, yeah? Leaves no footprint, yeah? Well...aside from the actual footprint.

Fine. Another one? Okay...how about going back to when porn was invented? But not if it was first found sketched roughly on the inside of caves. I bet those drawings weren’t very precise. I think I mean porn that was painted on canvas or drawn on paper.

Christian: And what exactly are you expecting to see during this historical moment? I think best case scenario all you’re going to see is some guy sitting at a table drawing. The worst case scenarios are probably going to be pretty bad.

Pat: Such a dude, Christian. So limiting. Don’t you think it COULD have been a woman who invented porn? I doubt it too, but at least I haven’t written it out as a possibility. Geez.  

But you make a good point. Porn-invention could get kinda’ icky.

Indoor plumbing? I bet that was a pretty exciting time in history.

Christian: But that probably includes them testing it out. Nope. Try again.

Pat:  Yeah? What’s wrong with that? I think testing all sorts of indoor plumbing prototypes sounds pretty fun.

Well...it’s a start at least!

Hey--thinking back, did you and I have trouble finding common interests in high school? I didn’t think so, but now I’m kinda’ wondering if maybe we had absolutely nothing in common.

Christian: I do recall not being nearly as interested in toilets as you were in high school so that might explain some things here.

I guess we could just agree to disagree but I disagree with that. We’ll let our dearest cherished readers decide. Which would be the best historical event to visit? The invention of fire or the invention of indoor plumbing. Or perhaps another event? Hmmmm?