Mayan Apocalypse? Fiscal Cliff? I’m Bored!

THE SONIC BOOMER

Monday night is New Year’s Eve, and you know what that means — we all fall off the fiscal cliff. I’d be terrified except I’m so happy we survived the apocalypse Dec. 21.

Of course, every day since Y2K has been a gift.

Yawn.

I am so bored with the end of the world. I’m also a little cranky. New Year’s parties on the eve of the millennium were a bust because people opted to sit home watching their computer monitors for signs of trouble. The whole “time zone” thing never occurred to them. But that’s OK — they’ll get a second chance on Dec. 31, 2999.

And last Friday, to be quite frank, the apocalypse kept slipping my mind. I was out Christmas shopping, and I think I had lunch at TooJay’s.

Actually, I was probably pretty safe as I can’t see the Four Horses storming the Mall at Wellington Green and charging up the escalator to get at me.

Of course, this is the exact type of thinking that makes for a perfect end-of-the-world scenario. Even if he was right, any Doomsday predictor showing up now would just be laughed at.

A guy showing up in sackcloth holding a “Repent” sign in front of TooJay’s would mean nothing more than a call to mall security. It would be the whole boy-who-cried-wolf thing all over again.

Doomsday Predictor: Repent!

Me: Excuse me, I’m trying to get into this restaurant.

DP: The world is going to end!

Me: Oh, really. Do I have time for a dill chicken sandwich first?

DP: I’m serious, lady. I have it on the Best Authority.

Me: Aren’t you the same guy who was selling those “Beware Y2K” T-shirts down at the beach a couple of years ago?

DP: (faltering) Well…

Me: And yet here we are in Y2012.

DP: (mumbling) Those T-shirts are valuable collectibles now.

Me: Not if the world ends, you idiot!

DP: Look, this is the real deal. There will be no Y2013. I have insider knowledge.

Me: Well, you should’ve thought about that 12 years ago when you got us all riled up over nothing. Don’t you think that if something was going to happen at midnight on New Year’s Eve it would’ve happened in Europe first? And that maybe our TV stations would’ve been all over it? At the very least, a “Breaking News” banner along the bottom of the screen?

DP: I’m just trying to save your soul before it’s too late. I think you should repent.

Me: And how do you know I haven’t? I repent every day. In case you haven’t noticed, the world is a mess. People are human. We make mistakes. Then we’re sorry for them. It happens.

DP: I’m glad to hear that.

Me: And sometimes we like to feel better so we have a dill chicken sandwich here at TooJay’s… say, can I buy you one? I think it would cheer you up.

DP: Wow, that would be nice. No one’s ever…

Then, BAM! A ball of fire roars across the food court and down the hall, turning the Doomsday Predictor and me into little piles of ash with not even time for a “Told you so.”

In my estimation, that’s how the world will end.

Until then, Happy New Year!