Past
Explanation
The Joke
A man confides to another person that he feels like he was "born in the wrong era." This is a common romantic sentiment people express when they feel nostalgic for a past time period they never actually lived in. The other person responds "All the time, man," agreeing with the sentiment. But then the first man clarifies what he actually means: he enjoys burning outfits and worshipping "hex stuff" -- essentially describing activities associated with medieval witch-hunting or occult practices rather than the romanticized cultural appreciation most people mean.
The comic then adds a second punchline: the man says that sometimes he does these things in public, like burning a rack of cats, but instead of being celebrated as he imagines he would be in the "right" era, he just gets kicked out of Home Depot. This escalates the absurdity by grounding his deranged medieval fantasies in a mundane modern retail setting.
The Humor
The comedy works through a bait-and-switch structure. The setup makes you think this is going to be the standard "I was born in the wrong era" conversation -- someone who wishes they lived during the Renaissance or the Jazz Age. Instead, the man reveals he is nostalgic for the darker, more violent aspects of earlier centuries, like burning things and quasi-occult rituals. The second punchline with Home Depot adds a layer of absurdist comedy by juxtaposing genuinely disturbing behavior (burning cats) with the banality of being asked to leave a hardware store, as if that is the real injustice.
References
The "born in the wrong era" trope is a well-known cultural phenomenon, often mocked online, where people romanticize past historical periods while ignoring the harsh realities (disease, lack of rights, violence). Weinersmith flips this by having someone who actually longs for the harsh, violent parts of history rather than the romanticized ones.