Filed by Bil at 11:16 pm under Pop Culture, The Science

Check out this performance from Tom Jones doing “It’s Not Unusual” from 1965. Dig his awesome hybrid cardigan sweater/leisure suit outfit. Stand in awe of his sweet dance moves. Try to keep up as he deftly switches back and forth between snapping his fingers and clapping his hands.

Here’s a story for you. Immediately following this performance, Tom Jones walked off the sound stage and punched a hole in the wall. Inside the hole in the wall was a small ruby and a map of clues leading to more precious jewels. Tom Jones took the map to his twin brother, Gallagher Jones, and offered him a choice: take over for Tom Jones as the crooning singer destined for fame and glory, or hunt down the jewels by following the clues. One road was a non-stop hunt for buried treasure, undoubtedly beset on all sides with danger and heartache. The other meant that he got to be Tom Jones for the rest of his life.

The two brothers couldn’t decide who would take which path, so they found a third option: time travel. They figured that when the singing brother was ready to retire, they could switch. If the treasure-seeking brother had not yet found the treasure, then he would destroy all his notes on the treasure and return the map to 1965 in its original form. If the treasure had been found by then, it was to be re-buried and a different map would be created, another set of fiendishly clever riddles to solve. They assumed that by the time they were old, time travel would be a reality, so they weren’t worried about the science.

So Tom Jones sought the treasure and Gallagher Jones took the stage name of Tom and began singing all over the world. He snapped his fingers and clapped his hands, and emitted the passion and energy that the world desired. Tom followed the clues and had all kinds of adventures, but never found the treasure. He grew older and older, until one day someone invented time travel, and Tom Jones decided to take his brother back to 1965 so they could switch lives.

But there was a problem. Gallagher didn’t want to seek the treasure. He’d had too much fun as the singer. He loved singing “It’s Not Unusual” all the time, and didn’t want to have to figure out a bunch of riddles.

Tom cried that this wasn’t fair, so Gallagher whispered into Tom’s ear something that made him stop and think.

“It’s up to you to make it fair,” he said. “Look up the hospital records from when we were born.”

Tom was confused by this, but decided to take Gallagher’s advice, since he sounded so confident in his mysterious whispering. Tom sought the records of the hospital from the day they were born and found his birth certificate. He saw nothing out of the ordinary about it, it seemed to confirm his birthday on the correct day, and his parents were the correct people.

Seeing nothing odd about his own birth certificate, he then looked for his twin brother’s. Somehow, though, there was no record of his twin brother’s birth at this hospital on this day. He looked and looked, but was unable to find any record of his brother’s birth at all, at this hospital or any other, on that date or any other.

Then it occurred to him. He never had a twin brother. It was himself all along. He did get both lives after all.

Tom Jones shed a single tear and stepped into the time machine. He knew what he had to do.

He took the time machine back to the day of his birth, growing younger and younger until he was just a newborn baby, and deposited himself beside the baby that had just been born to his parents.

The nurse at the hospital was very confused, and brought it to the attention of the attending doctor that there were two babies, twins by the sight of them, but only one birth certificate. The doctor just shrugged.

“It’s not unusual,” said the doctor, “it happens all the time.”

This is how Tom Jones was able to live twice, once as the famous singer we all know and love, and once as a treasure-hunting adventurer – two lifetimes in the same universe.

The end.