You will need:
- One penny, dated circa 1900
- A 16oz. cereal box, unopened (i.e. containing cereal)
- A coin-operated time machine
- A bank account containing at least $10
- 10^39 tons of scotch tape
Go to a cash machine and extract $10 from your bank account. Buy something costing around $1.49 from any nearby shop, to obtain some change. Use the money to operate the time machine. (Note: the time machine, bank account and the money contained therein will be created at later steps. Therefore the only equipment you ACTUALLY need to find in order to build this F-16 is the scotch tape, the penny and the cereal box. However, you should ensure that
all of the above items are present before you begin, or you will not be successful.)
Head forwards in time by several thousand years to an era of human history which has invented time travel. Extract some further cash from your account - it will have accumulated a HUGE quantity of interest during this time - and purchase a coin-operated time machine identical in model to your own. Send this back in time on autopilot to several minutes before you started following these instructions. This accounts for the time machine in the above list.
Head back to the 1900s or thereabouts and open a bank account with what was your current bank in your home era. Remember, banks go through name changes, so be sure to check up on what its old name used to be. Deposit the old penny. Compound interest should increase the value of this penny to about $10 by the time you need it in 2009. All of your money is now also accounted for, as is your bank account.
Take your scotch tape and your box of cereal backwards in time by roughly 14,000,000,000 years and allow the preposterous quantity of scotch tape to undergo gravitational collapse to form a star. This star should be of sufficient mass to go supernova, generating large amounts of iron and other heavy elements. If you picked your spot correctly, this should result in the creation of our Sun and the planet Earth, both of which you are therefore directly responsible for.
Head down onto the shores of young, sterile, lifeless Earth and empty out the box of cereal onto a randomly-selected stretch of coastline. Mold and bacteria in the cereal should soon begin to munch on the cereal, then the box, gradually evolving and growing until becoming life as we know it. You are now also responsible for the evolution of humanity, and obviously, all things that humanity has ever done, including, for example, the invention of time machines, bank accounts, scotch tape, breakfast cereal, and F-16 Fighting Falcons. (Note: even if the bacteria die out and humanity evolves by other means, then you still made Earth and everything on it, so you still get the credit for F-16s. However, the cereal box is not directly involved.)
Head to the distant future a second time. Extract $56 million from your bank account. Finally, return to the present day. Purchase an F-16.
