A dream job of mine (as in, I think about what it would be like in the hours when I should be dreaming instead) is The Person Whose Job It Is To Get Time Travellers From The Past Up To Speed On Modern Culture.

I wonder how this would go.

Mel and Dottie are a young married couple from 1941 America, sitting bewildered in their chairs when I walk in the room. Our operation is spare; our facilities are three rooms rented out of an undistinguished office building. This room is the Field Room, hastily bedecked in stately early-1940s décor. Period-appropriate wallpaper and carpeting from the Shop Room. An RCA radio prop, one of those cathedral models, is softly playing Glenn Miller tunes. Underneath the prop is a modern wireless Bose speaker connected to my iTunes on shuffle.

“Welcome to Twenty Eleven!” I say, wheeling in my laptop and projector. “I know you’re probably still getting over the shock of waking up seventy years in the future.” They nod mutely. “My name is Katie Rose Chester, and I’m here to get you comfortable with our society and culture. Please feel free to stop me at any point if you have questions, I know you have a lot of them.”

But then what happens? I haven’t figured this out yet.

Do I lead them gradually through the intervening eras?

“Here’s Japan bombing Pearl Harbor, and America finally entering World War II. The Allies win, in 1945. Yes, Mel, you would have fought in World War II if you had not woken up in modern times.” I wonder if it’s a good idea to use words like modern times or the present, which mean different things to my audience.

“Here’s poodle skirts. This is rock and roll.” Slides of teenagers hanging out in malt shops, dancing in high-school gyms. I switch out Benny Goodman for Buddy Holly. “The radio gives way to television.” The projector switches to video. The Honeymooners, I Love Lucy. Nixon-Kennedy debates. “Check out the Civil Rights Movement.”

Or do I jump directly to the present?

“This thing I’m holding is a phone. Yes, it comes from the telephones of your era, but it can do so much more.”

“The Internet is like a giant electronic library of information. On it you can send messages to anyone else in the world in an instant. E-mail stands for electronic mail.”

“Here’s a picture of a cat playing a piano. This is very funny to us. We call it a meme. The letters L.O.L. stand for laugh out loud.”

“Oh yeah, women wear trousers now. Also there’s no more Soviet Union.”

“This woman is called Lady Gaga. You’re listening to her song, ‘Poker Face’. In this picture she is wearing a dress made of meat. This is what fashion is like nowadays.”