She blinked into our office just as we were recovering from the shock brought on by the break up of Puff Daddy and Jennifer Lopez.

“It looks as if I’m just in time,” she said as she pulled some tour schedules from her purse. “I need you to print the dates for The Cult and Buckcherry.”

“What’s the crisis this time? Riots at the ticket scalper work camps in 2021? Or has the hole in the ozone layer grown so large that the Edgar Winter Band had to give up touring?”

“Neither,” she answered. “But if you print these dates on the Internet, along with Green Day, Nina Simone and Macy Gray, you’ll prevent Hillary Clinton from joining the Dixie Chicks.”

“The Clintons again, eh?” we responded. “We should have guessed. By the way, who’s gonna win our upcoming presidential election?”

“I’m not sure,” she answered.

“It’s not another case of diverging time lines, is it?” we asked her. “Like if we print Reel Big Fish dates, Gore wins, and if we print the Rickie Lee Jones schedule, Bush becomes president?”

“Nothing like that. It’s just that in the future, no one can remember who wins your election anymore than they can remember NBC’s Olympics 2000 broadcast. Besides, the presidency doesn’t take on any real power until Ricky Martin is elected in 2008.”

“What you’re saying is, by future standards, our upcoming election is pretty much a non-event.”

“Strictly dullsville, but it will inspire the movement to draft a concert promoter for the ballot in 2004.”

“Wait a minute,” we begged her. “You mean, in the future you folks will actually turn to concert promoters to lead the country?”

“And why not?” she answered. “If you can negotiate fees for Nina Gordon and The Wallflowers, handle crowd control at Bob Dylan and clean up after Ted Nugent, running the country should be a cinch. Even when it comes to the really tough decisions, like bombing Ottawa in 2006.”

“So, who becomes the first promoter president?”

“No one. Although, it’s not like we didn’t try. But in the end, we elected another politician.”

“You mean the people changed their minds and decided they didn’t want a promoter for president?”

“Oh, no. The people were begging the promoters to run for the office. But no one would accept the nomination.”

“Why’s that,” we asked as she prepared to jump back into the future.”

“None of them could afford the cut in pay.”