A VISION OF THE FUTURE

It’s the year 3012 and all food is gluten-free. No restaurant, grocery, or bakery serves anything with gluten in it, and guess what? Everything still tastes great. But that’s not the only thing that’s changed.

The amount of time people save by not having to ask—or answer—the question “Is that gluten-free?” when ordering food has lengthened every individual’s life span by an estimated fourteen hours. This “extra time” is used by most people to write negative reviews on the Internet of things they see or hear or have heard about.

Cars run on gluten-free fuel, which is an improvement on the green fuel that replaced gasoline completely in 2567. The original green fuel was a combination of wheat, seaweed, and curry powder. It was loaded with gluten, and then there was the fact that everything smelled like curry. I mean everything—the whole of outdoors—curry.

A race war is raging. Latinos and Asians are kicking butt. Blacks and whites are losing. Lots of deaths, but thankfully, it didn’t impede the effort to reduce the amount of gluten in food.

Jerusalem is at peace. Israel is back to its 1967 borders, and the Palestinians and Israelis are best friends. Interesting fact: there are more bar mitzvahs performed in Palestine than anywhere else on earth. At these bar mitzvahs, only gluten-free food is served—but you knew that already.

In 2997, the scientist Dontaurius Morgan finally figured out how to remove all gluten from food without losing flavor or consistency. He had a full career as a footballer, playing halfback for the Liverpool Beatles team for the maximum eight concussions. He then attended Harvard-on-the-Moon University, a division of the University of Phoenix, the world’s most respected institution of higher learning. Statues of Dontaurius are all over the place. It’s considered good luck to rub the statue’s belly and pinch its nipples. This is kinda weird, but…what can you do?

A spaceship called the Starship Enterprise has been traveling through space for nearly a hundred years, exacerbating conflicts and instigating quarrels. Experts suspect that the crew is attempting to reintroduce gluten into the food supply.

People live to be 130 years old on average—and they live well. My wife can eat anything, anywhere, without calling ahead to check on what they serve, or if it’s gluten-free. We go out a lot, so, yeah, life is pretty great. Except for the horrible, rampant racism.