HotmailPranksters created a time loop in a Starbucks
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II. The mission
“If Time is really only a fourth dimension of Space, why is it, and why has it always been, regarded as something different? And why cannot we move in Time as we move about in other dimensions of Space?” — H.G. Wells, "The Time Machine"
4:48 p.m. — The first loop
Agent Dippold and I entered the Starbucks. Ever the gentleman, I held the door open for three ladies before walking in. (I repeated holding the door for the same length of time at every subsequent loop, despite there being no ladies to hold it open for.) We held hands and slowly approached the register, carefully memorizing every step we made, as we would have to repeat each of them 11 more times. As I considered what drink to order, Agent Dippold fumbled through her purse looking for her cell phone. I glanced down in her handbag and spotted the pack of cigarettes.
“You can’t smoke in here, Katie,” I said.
“I’m not smoking. I’m just getting my phone.”
“Give me those!” I snapped, trying to wrestle the cigarettes out of her purse. Agent Dippold slapped my hand away and cried out, “Stop it!”
“You promised you would never smoke around me,” I said.
“I’m not!”
I tried to grab the cigarettes again, seething with anger. “You promised you wouldn’t let me see these.”
Agent Dippold grew frustrated with my attempts to confiscate her cigarettes and stormed out of the Starbucks. But before walking out the door, she turned to me on the verge of tears and said, “I can’t believe you’re doing this!”
“Come back! Come back here, Katie!” I shouted after her, and then chased her out of the coffee shop.
As we exited, Agent Mason spilled his coffee and yelled, “Goddamn it!” He jumped up to get napkins and collided into Agent King on his way back to clean up his table. Agent King was, of course, on his way to the bathroom.
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Agent King returned to his table when Agent Barrison sat back down and remarked, “That bathroom line is too long.” At this point, Agent Keech entered the Starbucks with his boom box blaring “Shiny Happy People.” He walked in one door, slowly strutted across the store, and exited through a door on the opposite side. “I came awfully close to cracking up the first time Agent Keech walked in,” Agent Kula said. “Not so much because, you know, here’s a dude in a Starbucks with a boom box kicking out the jams, as it was, here’s a dude in a Starbucks with a boom box kicking out ‘Shiny Happy People.’ ”
As soon as Agent Keech was out of the Starbucks, Agent Kula sneezed loudly, looked up from his copy of ESPN The Magazine, and cleared his throat. On cue, I held the front door open for three invisible ladies and reentered the Starbucks with Agent Dippold.
4:53 p.m. — The second loop
As soon as we stepped back in line, Agent Dippold and I repeated our argument about her on again/off again smoking habit word for word and then stomped out of the Starbucks in a huff. Only a few people stopped what they were doing to watch our second tiff, but for all intents and purposes, it most likely appeared that Agent Dippold and I had resolved our first conflict, reentered the store, and had another flare-up.
As we exited, Agent Mason howled, “Goddamn it!” yet again as he spilled his drink, and we sloshed through the puddle of coffee he created on our way out. I heard “The Entertainer” ring on Agent Barrison’s phone as the door shut, and as Agent Dippold and I circled the block, Agent King waited in line in vain for the bathroom, and Agent Keech grooved through the store once more to the pleasing sounds of “Shiny Happy People.” A few heads turned to observe the oddity of an identical five-minute chain of events occurring twice in 10 minutes, but nobody seemed to be too concerned by it. That is, not until Agent Kula cleared his throat and Agent Dippold and I entered the Starbucks for a third time.
4:58 p.m. — The third loop
When Agent Dippold and I got in line for the third loop, it felt like every pair of eyes in the coffee shop was watching us. Every movement we made was identical to our first two trips through the Starbucks.
“You can’t smoke in here, Katie,” I said for the entire coffee shop to hear. As Agent Dippold and I launched into our argument for a third time, two curious men moved to another table so that they could get a better view of our altercation. After Agent Dippold exited the Starbucks, an old man turned to his buddy and announced, “Katie’s gone out of here three times!”
“On the third loop, things got interesting,” Agent King recalled. “A lot of people recognized that something weird was going on, but they were apprehensive to say anything out of fear that maybe this bizarre repetitive pattern was all in their own heads.”
5:03 p.m. — The fourth loop
As soon as I opened the door, I heard the old man say to his friend, “Uh-oh! Look who it is! Here comes Katie again!”
“You can’t smoke in here, Katie,” I said, re-initiating the loop.
The old guy turned to his friend. “Watch this. She’s gonna go stormin’ outta here.” On cue, Agent Dippold ran out of the Starbucks.
“Come back! Come back here, Katie!” I shouted. The old men started laughing. “See, I told you,” one of them said. “ ‘Come back, Katie!’ Ha! Ha! It’s like that every time!”
“What are we, in some sort of time warp?” the other old man asked.
After Agent King gave up on waiting in line for the bathroom and right before Agent Keech entered with his boom box, a Starbucks patron called out, “Here comes radio guy!” And sure enough, Agent Keech walked through the door playing “Shiny Happy People.”
5:08 p.m. — The fifth loop
“They always come back holding hands,” the old man told his buddy as Agent Dippold and I walked in yet again.
“Wouldn’t you give up after the second time?”
“If I was him, I’d say, ‘Fine! Leave! I’ll just be right here.’ ”
Another table of onlookers pointed at Agent Keech as he entered for the fifth time blaring R.E.M.’s feel-good song. “Look! The guy with the boom box keeps coming in that door. Here he comes! Here he comes!”
5:13 p.m. — The sixth loop
A Starbucks employee, obviously hip to our antics, approached me and asked for the time.
I glanced down at my watch and replied, “Five twenty-five.” He smiled and said, “Thanks. I hope everything is going OK.” For the remaining five loops, I looked at my watch and said, “Five twenty-five,” at the exact same moment. It had now been incorporated into our sequence.
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5:18 p.m. — The seventh loop
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After spilling his drink on himself for six consecutive loops, Agent Mason was sopping wet by the seventh go-round. As soon as his puddle of coffee was cleaned up, he’d go right ahead and spill his drink again.
“It was the perfect blend of hilarious and pitiful,” Agent Kula said. “People wanted to laugh, but at the same time they felt so bad for this poor guy whose shirt kept getting more and more soaked. Every single time after Agent Mason brought back the napkins and toweled himself off, I’d look up from my magazine and we’d share one of those half-smile/half-shrug looks as if to say, ‘Yep, it’s just one of those days ...’ ”
5:23 p.m. — The eighth loop
“And it all begins again!” I heard someone shout out as Agent Dippold and I entered.
By this point, some people started freaking out. Total strangers were chatting across tables, acknowledging that something really weird was happening.
“This is scary,” one man said. “Everything is happening over and over again.”
5:28 p.m. — The ninth loop
After Agent Dippold and I barged out of the Starbucks for the ninth time, a woman turned to her boyfriend and asked, “Would you chase after me like that over and over again?”
“Hell no!” he said. “You can chase your own damn self around the block!”
5:33 p.m. — The 10th loop
Because my argument with Agent Dippold and Agent Keech’s “Shiny Happy People” stroll through the Starbucks were the most noticeable patterns in the möbius, many people didn’t notice the more subtle loops until our 10th repetition.
“There was a young girl sitting beside Agent Barrison and me,” Agent King said. “She noticed the lovers’ quarrel repeating on the third time through but didn’t notice me repeating, ‘The line for this bathroom is really long,’ until much later. As the loops continued to progress, she started rubbing her face and shaking her head ... just looking really confused.”
5:38 p.m. — The 11th loop
“What is going on in here?” I heard someone say in frustration during my argument with Agent Dippold. “The same thing is happening over and over again!”
The sense of fear and confusion had totally evaporated. Everyone in the Starbucks began calling out what was going to happen next, as if they were a band of psychics with the ability to forecast the future.
“He’s gonna run after his girlfriend!” one man predicted right before I bolted after Agent Dippold.
“Cue the guy spilling his drink!” a woman said, like a symphony conductor, just before Agent Mason made a mess of his coffee.
At the end of this loop, nearly everyone in the Starbucks shouted in unison, “Here comes the radio guy!” And in walked Agent Keech playing “Shiny Happy People.”
5:43 p.m. — The final loop
Another Starbucks employee approached Agent Dippold and I upon our 12th entrance into the shop.
“Hello there,” he said. “I just wanted to make sure that everything is OK with you guys.”
“We were just going to get something to drink, if that’s OK,” Agent Dippold said.
“Yes, of course,” the Starbucks employee said. “I’m so sorry to bother you ...”
“No problem.”
“It’s just that all these people back there,” he said, pointing at the other agents, “it feels like this is some kind of instant replay. Anyway, I’m sorry to bother you.”
As soon as the employee walked away, I spotted Agent Dippold’s cigarettes again and we engaged in our final fight of the afternoon. For one last loop, Agent Mason spilled his coffee, Agent Barrison answered his cell phone, Agent King waited for the bathroom, Agent Keech blasted “Shiny Happy People,” and Agent Kula let out a big sneeze. Without acknowledging our stunt or each other, the agents exited the coffee shop, leaving behind a Starbucks full of puzzled people.
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