Take My Life Please, Season 20: Ep 10

The ability to alter history is something that I always thought would be the greatest super power to have. If not being able to completely alter history, the ability to view different outcomes based on alternate decisions would have fallen a close third on my super power list, behind instant teleportation like the movie Jumper of course. In episode 10 of season 20, Homer Simpson was given a chance to view how his life could have been if he had won the Presidential election in his high school. This unrealistic episode is deeper then the sauce pot in which Homer stared into anxiously awaiting to see what he could have become.

The episode opens up with the camera panning out at a Springfield Wall of Fame induction ceremony for former high school class President Vance Connor (Homer finds out later that he had actually won the election). Vance takes the stage with an award winning smile, a business suit and great hair. From the crowd, excited townsfolk cheer him on and Lenny shouts “You’re better than us!” It’s apparent that Vance is living the dream everyone desires and Homer envies.

Later in the episode, Homer and his family enter a mysterious Italian restaurant and learn that a giant bowl of pasta sauce has the ability to show him and his family what life might have been had the votes been counted and he had been the class President despite protests from his wife and daughter Lisa, Homer chooses to peer into the sauce. Life is different for Homer, even though he won his high school election because he was the biggest loser in high school; it dramatically had changed his life and produced a successful man.

Even though he still worked for Mr. Burns, lived in Springfield and had married Marge; he didn’t have any children… Not that Homer had cared very much that he was without children in this alternate reality. He softened up and was happy again at the end of the episode after his family had presented him with a plaque in the Springfield Wall of Fame. Homer had wished to be remembered and he wished that he could make his mark on history and thanks to his family; he was given his niche in their society.

If I had to guess the moral of the story; I would say that it’s better to leave the past alone and stop dwelling on what could have been and focus on what can be tomorrow. But what do I know? I still want to see what my life could have been had like had I went to Fordham University with some blond chick that I knew from Ithaca, New York