It wasn’t the end of the world as we know it – and I still feel fine
New Years Eve in this household went off with nary a bang – a quiet bbq at the in laws, some fine ciders from Tasmania, a quick look at the year that was on TV and then suddenly it was 1am and I was happy to make friends with my mattress again.
But in amongst the crisp apple juices, the overdone fried meat, the reminders that both Kim Jong Il and Gaddafi both snuffed it last year and the televised fireworks display, I noticed there was a lack of something this year which to someone like me who finds amusement in the strangest of places, left me a little disappointed.
Where had all the doomsayers gone?
You know the ones – the nutters who stand high on their soapboxes and declare to all within earshot that the end is well and truly near and if you don’t repent, hand over your estate AND wash your mouth out with holy water, you won’t be coming back as a butterfly next time around after the globe explodes bang on midnight.
Centuries ago they would be wearing a wolfs head, waving a stick and commanding quite a crowd as they rambled on about firey destruction.
Er...no, not really like this...
Of course as time progressed, so did the medium of sharing tales of doom and gloom. From the sandy streets of the Roman Empire with a wolf’s head mounted on yours, to much more accessible method for doomsayers to spread the word warnings: like A Current Affair..
The joke writes itself really...
(I remember a couple of years ago watching ACA when they had a guy on whose religious group had predicted the end of the world, based on a few factors like: the way the animals they’d seen were starting to eat their food differently. If fussy animal feeding was a catalyst to the end of life as we know it, then Savannah our fussy Border Collie is obviously the destroyer of universes in disguise..)
Nowadays all you need is either a corner of the web to set up shop and ramble away about how everything you hold dear is about to turn to dust (kind of what I do here really but I’m nowhere near that morbid) or just a camera to upload to Youtube..
It goes for an hour, I only gave it 30 seconds…
But this (end of last) year I might have been living under a rock because I didn’t see one prediction of the world heading for the bin anywhere. Someone drunkenly did mention something about the Mayan calender at a recent Xmas work function but that’s hardly the same as a rabid bunch of naysayers stocking up on canned food and moving up to the top of the nearest hill in preparation for massive floods.
(Mind you I haven’t watched ACA for many years which probably explains why I haven’t seen any and why I don’t have any untoward anger to lesbian chess playing taxi drivers who rip off the system when the taxpayers aren’t looking either.)
Not even playing Pink Floyd’s ‘Dark side of the moon’ on the way to the in laws was enough to tip the scales. For shame.
So I walked into this year with nary a apocalyptic prediction and amazingly, not a hangover either. Not a bad start at all really – but today being Jan 3rd, there’s still 362 days left on the non Mayan callender. Doomsayers, you’ve been slacking off and I expect you to start making up for lost time. For the sake of my own strange amusement, get predicting already!