In these crazy times that we live in, as I sat at the checkout desk at Kresge library I came up with a list of the seven signs that indeed we have reached the apocalypse now.
1. The Spice Girls: Never have such an annoying group of musicians been assembled. Now the reason they make this list is not for their usual claptrap garbage but rather because reports say the British may dethrone these queens of pop with a parrot that in fact sings their music. So the only thing that can replace the Spice Girls on the pop charts in Britain is a parrot that sings Spice Girls' songs. Find a bomb shelter, the world is ending.
2. The Millennium Computer Bug: This problem with the computers failing at the turn of the century has been used to claim that the entire world will basically end. Planes will slam into each other, power grids will fail, the U.S. nuclear arsenal will be uncontrollable, bank records will be erased, computer screens will explode in balls of fire while molten lakes of sulfur bubble up through the floors of investment banks throughout the world. Prepare accordingly.
3. The Stock Market Crisis: I didn't even know that Thailand had a currency and that said currency was in fact in crisis. But who would've imagined that anyone in the world actually cared? Make no mistake economists are trained professionals who understand the stock market and there is no question that the loss of the very important contributions of Thailand to the world economy must surely be a sign of an imminent global holocaust. I really felt compelled to make all you future investment bankers feel like what you do matters to anyone other than other I-bankers.
4. The Louise Woodward decision: We've sent the world a message that in America if a baby won't shutup just shake the damn thing and throw it in a hamper. Then pretend you don't understand the U.S. legal system when they sentence you. It's always nice to know that au pairs looking for "fun and adventure" won't be held accountable by those malicious yapping infants they kill. The world will come to an end as the U.S. ceases reproducing when the entire infant human population gets shaken to death instead of having diapers changed or being given a bottle.
5. The Chinese president loves Elvis and recites the Gettysburg address: And this is irking the U.S. by parodying our great icons, so there is only one solution. In this scenario the U.S. nuclear force is put up against the five-trillion-strong Chinese population in what promises to be a world war to end all world wars. In the name of human rights the U.S. will bomb China back into the Stone Age -- even though Communism has ensured that most of the peasant population never got out of it. Meanwhile the large Chinese population guarantees that some will mutate into creatures of unparalleled power as radiation makes them a deadly superrace.
6. El Nino: This horrendous weather monster has been blamed for everything from sunny skies over Des Moines to cold temperatures gripping Alaska. But don't be deceived, this is truly one of the seven signs. This hideous hell-spawned creation is so terrible they gave it a Spanish name, which translated into English means The Nino. That itself means hell-spawned creation. It's so mysterious that only a few key facts are known about it. 1) it is living. 2) it has the capacity to spit swarms of locusts at will 3) it is responsible for EVERY weather phenomenon that has occurred or will occur. 4) it is going to kill us all in an orgy of natural disasters that makes the Bible look fun.
7. The death of the people's princess: Diana, queen of hearts and shimmering star that lent her natural beauty to a host of drab and ugly causes is truly a sign that all the fury of Satan is being mustered for one final battle. Never before has one woman brought so much dignity, fashion sense and beauty to the ugly issue of land mines, a cause that heretofore always featured people with their limbs missing. But it is the senselessness of her death that portends the existentialist end of the world. Driven by a drunk driver on anti-depressants. Speeding at a 125 miles an hour through narrow Parisian streets. Not wearing a seat belt. Senseless. Truly senseless. With our fearless fashion queen of the people's hearts dead what have left but the end of the world?
A corollary reason for the apocalypse is the fact that Elton John is selling music again.