 What is the time warp typically used for?
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction December 1956. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. What better way to use a time machine than to handle department store complaints? The Christmas party at the Boston branch of Hartshorne-Logan was threatening to become more legendary than usual this Christmas. When he slid under the table containing the drinks, Miss Pringle, who sold millinery, had screamed: "He'll drown!" One out of every three dirty stories started by party attendees had remained unfinished, because each had reminded someone else of another story. The recently developed liquors which affected the bloodstream three times faster had driven away twinges of conscience about untrimmed trees and midnight church services. The star salesman for mankies and the gentleman who was in charge of the janitors were putting on a display of Burmese foot-wrestling in one corner of the general office. The janitor foreman weighed fifty pounds less than the Burma gentleman, who was the salesman's customary opponent. So the climax of one tactic did not simply overturn the foreman. "It's all in the spirit of good, clean fun!" cried Mr. Hawkins, the assistant general manager. There was a scurry to shove the broken glass out of sight and to turn more attention to another type of glasses. Mr. Hawkins himself, acting by reflex, attempted to return the portrait to its place until new glass could be obtained. "We'd better put old H. H. away for safekeeping until after the holiday," he told a small, blonde salesclerk who was beneath his attention on any working day. "Hell, Milly, you aren't working!" To hear more of it, he said to her: "I'll bet that's been in there ever since the picture was framed. There's a company legend that that picture was put up the day this branch opened, eighty years ago." The flap popped open and an old-fashioned order blank fell out. Disposable sacks for vacuum cleaner. "Unless—" he said it loud enough for the employes to scent a great proposal and the room grew quiet—"unless we broke the rules just once and used the time warp on a big mission!" Finally, from an anonymous voice in one corner: "Would the warp work over eighty years? Ignore the catalogue numbers—they've changed a hundred times in all these years." But I remember that my grandmother never bought anything from Hartshorne-Logan because of some trouble her mother had once with the firm.
 to fix mistakes made recently by the company
 to visit deceased family members  to look into the future to discover inventions  to fix mistakes made recently by the company  to revisit holiday parties