Harrumph File #069 05.22.2011_Judgment Day

     Well, it’s May 22^nd, 2011 and we’re still here.  The world hasn’t ended.  I know, I know.  Many of you, including this commentator, are sorely disappointed but we must “lean forward” and “move on” like the good little troopers that we are.  If you don’t know what I’m talking about (which seems to be a recurring theme here at HARRUMPH,) then I’ll give you a brief tutorial.  May 21^st, 2011 was singled out by someone, somewhere, as “Judgment Day.”  The end of time.  God’s final judgment of the living and the dead.  Now, I’m sure this person used good geometric logic and proper analytical thinking to come up with this date.  But, just as men have been wrong before (like how the White House stewards underestimated this president’s appetite for lobster,) apparently he was wrong this time.

     As I said earlier, I am a bit disappointed with this turn of events.  After all, now I’ve got plenty of pre-positioned rifle magazines that will need unloading, sand bags that have to be emptied and put into storage, and doors & windows that will need to be unboarded.  You see, that’s the one thing about all these people that have been warning that the end of the world is just around the corner (Nostradamus, the Y2Kers, Mayans, religious zealots, politicians, etc.)  You can’t just ignore them because, what if they’re right?  The last thing you want happening to you at the apocalypse is to have an empty tank of gas, no emergency food supplies, and empty rifle magazines.  And, I know it’s hard to believe but what if that one nut that’s saying something like “the end of the world will take place at precisely 2:14 pm Eastern Standard Time, Tuesday, July 18^th, 2017” is the one guy that actually knows?

     It would be like a movie or something.  You’ve all seen it before:  Nicholas Cage (it’s always Nicholas Cage) is told by some alien, or maybe it’s an angel, or even if it’s just Stephen Hawking that comes to him in a dream or something.  He goes around telling people about it wearing that puppy dog look of his, and running from government agents (the government always knows about these things and tries to cover them up… because that’s just what the government does) the entire movie.  By the end of the flick his girlfriend (who was just a computer programmer or museum guide he ran into at the beginning of the film) finally believes him and just as the government agents are closing in on them, God and Stephen Hawking appear on a golden chariot and call them off because “just one man was able to make a difference” and mankind is good to go for another millennium or so, blah, blah.

Better set that clock back a few ticks, boys.

     Well, I for one am getting tired of all the rifle magazine stacking and unstacking I’ve been forced to do over the last decade or so.  My door jambs and window frames can’t take another nailing and unnailing of reinforcing boards.  Sand bags aren’t cheap either, you know.  I’m telling you “experts” out there, quit telling us that “there’s a good possibility” that Haley’s comet might hit the earth the next time around, or that world monetary systems will collapse if we don’t have a debt ceiling, or that Nostradamus’ eighty-fifth quatrain used the word “Hister” and that that’s only one letter away from “Hitler” and that means that the end of the world is just around the corner, blah, blah, blah.  Jeeze, the word “Idiots” is only four letters away from “Hister,” what do you think that means, you jack wagons?  Experts, Bah! (hand waves dramatically.)  When you find the quatrain that gives us a definite date give me a call.  Otherwise take a lesson from the Georgia Satellites and “don’t hand me no lines, and keep your hands to yourself!”  Harrumph…