The Sharks have once again made it to the Western Conference
Finals, promising great joy or all-too-familiar disappointment
depending on whose puck finds the back of the net how many times.
Meanwhile the Giants are surging after a painfully slow start and
are beginning to look like the darlings of last summer.
The Sharks have once again made it to the Western Conference Finals, promising great joy or all-too-familiar disappointment depending on whose puck finds the back of the net how many times. Meanwhile the Giants are surging after a painfully slow start and are beginning to look like the darlings of last summer.
The economy is getting better, or not; economists are not in complete agreement on whether to fill us with hope or depress us into therapy, so they give us contradictory predictions on alternate days. The weather continues to be goofy, acting as though it had such a wonderful winter that it can’t stand to let go. I’m on my second set of wiper blades.
But none of this, or anything else, matters because the world is going to end on Saturday, so no Stanley Cup for the Sharks yet again and no World Series repeat for the Beard and the Panda. Damn.
But what can we do? Some Bay Area chapter of Apocalypse Anonymous, along with a cadre of other party-poopers currently howling on the Internet, have done some kind of calculation-divination-Nostradamus-thingie and proclaimed that the human race officially files for bankruptcy May 21. There are even billboards on the freeway, and to make sure we have no doubts as to the pinpoint accuracy of their claim they include the certification “The Bible guarantees it.”
Now I don’t know about you, but I hate it when the end of the world falls on a weekend; we don’t get the day off, but some stores may close which means we Monday-to-Friday people lose half of our limited weekly opportunity to shop. I think it’s just poor planning, plain and simple.
And what about this Bible guarantee thing? I mean, what if, and I’m talking worst-case scenario here, the world doesn’t end on Saturday? What if, because of the influence of the earthquake in Japan on the rotation of the earth coupled with the global effect of Donald Trump’s non-candidacy for president, the world doesn’t end until next Tuesday, or even for a very, very long time?
From whom do we demand our guaranteed right to have the world end? Or, in the alternative, how are we to be compensated? I mean, with most guarantees we’d be entitled to our money back, but I didn’t actually pay anything for the end of the world; besides, if it only holds off until next Tuesday or so there would be no time to process the paperwork and you know most money-back guarantees are a rip-off anyway because they always find a way to deny your claim on the grounds that you didn’t fill out the application exactly right. Been there, done that.
I think the Hallmark people really missed a golden opportunity here because I have been utterly unable to find an end-of-the-world card. I mean, it seems only civilized in the face of something of such importance to send cards to loved ones, friends, and business associates, and everybody knows that in business thoughtfulness is often good for the bottom line. Customers and clients appreciate the sentiment.
I presume they just couldn’t get a handle on the proper theme. Should it be congratulatory, or more of a condolence thing? After all, they have divorce cards and probably by now long-term unemployment cards; they’re experienced professionals at coming up with appropriate words for every occasion and I really think they’ve let us down, and I won’t forget it. The next time the world ends I plan to take my business elsewhere.
Now, to be technically precise, I believe the believers are not claiming the total end of the world on Saturday; apparently this is a two-parter like the season-ending episodes of most TV shows. May 21 will be merely apocalyptic, whereas this coming October 21 will be much worse, which means we have between now and October 21 to invent a word for “much worse than apocalyptic” so we can describe it. That will be no small challenge and could take us most of the summer, so all vacation plans are hereby cancelled.
The real gut-wrenching bummer in all this is that it totally trumps the end of the world on December 21, 2012 as allegedly predicted by the Mayan calendar (which apparently freaked out the Mayans so badly that they left town five centuries early).
I mean, this is just gratuitous cruelty, and you know the final insult? December 21, 2012 is a Friday; we’d have gotten the day off.
Despite being an award-winning columnist, Robert Mitchell doggedly remains the same eccentric attorney who has practiced general law in Morgan Hill for more than 30 years. Reach him at r.****@*****on.net.  Â
