If you’re reading this any time after Friday, it means the world didn’t end on Dec. 21, like so many wise and knowledgeable experts (long-dead Mayans and my “friends” on Facebook) said it would.
For most people, that’s probably good news. But not for me. As I’ve mentioned before, my long-term financial planning relied rather heavily on Friday’s apocalypse. If the world’s still here, I’m in trouble.
Of course, it’s possible that by the time you read this, a few “mini-apocalypses” will have taken place; not-quite-extinction level events, I mean. Disasters like, oh, I dunno, a meteor strike on whatever building houses the record-keeping offices of the Internal Revenue Service.
Or maybe a virus released by terrorists that turns every Bank of America employee into a memory-challenged zombie.
If really bad things also have happened to the electric company, my previous cell phone carrier and the bar in Detroit where a bookie named “Louie” hangs out, I’m all set.
It would also be helpful, though not essential, if small volcanoes have by Friday erupted under the homes of two of my four ex-wives. (The court order prevents me from saying which two.) I don’t owe money to either, so this isn’t critical. But if this could happen, it would definitely help me to maintain a more positive attitude in the post-apocalyptic world.
Naturally, I’m hoping to live through whatever disaster takes out (or has taken out) the rest of you. Along with a rag-tag band of fellow survivors (the Dallas Cowboys Cheer Team and a half-dozen Swedish stewardesses) we will rebuild civilization, with the possible exceptions of the IRS, cell phone companies, Bank of America and that bar in Detroit.
I figure that — depending on things like residual radiation, roving zombies (former Bank of America employees), and mutated “super-chimps” that are tired of eating bananas and demand the right to vote — we should be able to get society back on a paying basis by 2020, or “The Year 8” as we’ll be calling it in our new calendar (a calendar in which photos of cheerleaders, stewardesses and super-chimps will figure prominently).
This new society will of course need a leader, and while modesty prevents me from nominating myself, I can’t help but point out that I am the one who thought all this up in the first place. Also, I already have a crown, left over from the days when Burger King still gave them out free with kiddie meals.
At any rate, if it’s Friday and the apocalypse HAS happened, and if you’re one of the survivors, and if you’re looking for someone to lead you and the rest of the Cowboys Cheer Team into a Brave New World, I hope you’ll keep me in mind.
On the other hand, if the Mayans and my Facebook friends are right and all life as we know it on planet Earth really DID end Friday, then the remainder of this column is directed toward the space alien archaeologists who may find this essay thousands — or even millions — of years from now.
The first thing you guys need to know is this: If you look under my desk at the newspaper office, you’ll find a map to my apartment. There, crouched beneath the rusting frame of what used to be my bed, you will find whatever remains of my DNA (easily identifiable by the butterfly tattoo on my left buttocks).
Use whatever technology you space aliens possess to clone me back to life and I’ll tell you everything you want to know about homo sapiens sapiens. I promise I won’t embellish. Just the facts, as Joe Friday used to say.
Joe Friday, by the way, was the 69th President of Planet Earth and was responsible for giving super-chimps the right to vote.
That’s just a taste; I’ve got plenty more facts for you where that came from, just as soon as you reconstitute that DNA and bring me back to life. Remember, the map’s under my desk.
(Also, if you should happen bring back my girlfriend, Sweet Annie, don’t mention that thing about the cheerleaders and stewardesses, OK?)
Mike Taylor’s eBook, “Looking at the Pint Half Full,” is available from Amazon.com and in paperback format from Robins Book List in Greenville. Contact Mike at mtaylor325@gmail.com.
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