Illuminations

As we were grousing and grumbling over the moribund economy and the you-know-what fate of people in the advertising business at times like these, a coworker mentioned something to the effect of, “But why worry? The world comes to an end in 2012, anyway.”

Oddly, that comment cheered me up more than anything has in days. 

Why, I reasoned, wouldn’t they eliminate the penalties for early IRA withdrawal if we’ve only got three years left? If that happened—and as a result we could all be reasonably sure we really were scheduled to go ass-up towards oblivion on December 21^st, 2012—then go ahead and fire me. Fire all of us!

Even with the horrific beating the market’s taken, I’ve still got just enough socked away to carry me, my kids and a well-wisher or two for a lousy three more years. We wouldn’t be staying at the Plaza or racing Bentleys on our private island, but especially with the reduced appetites that must come along with impending, cataclysmic death, we’d be fine.

Excited by this prospect of End Times at the Right Time, I decided to do some research with which to pad my letter to the IRS, and if needs be, to the brand-spankin' new president himself. Sadly, my scheme, like so many others, was skewered by what appears to be (damnit) a perfectly sane and scholarly website. Here is a sample:

"…when a calendar comes to the end of a cycle, it just rolls over into the next cycle. In our Western society, every year 31 December is followed, not by the End of the World, but by 1 January. So 13.0.0.0.0 in the Mayan calendar will be followed by 0.0.0.0.1 - or good-ol' 22 December 2012, with only a few shopping days left to Christmas." - Excerpt from Dr Karl Kruszelnicki’s “Great Moments in Science.”

So, Dr. Karl, you’re saying the Mayan calendar doesn’t “end” on 12/21/2012 any more than Television “ends” when Stephen Colbert says “goodnight America.”

You, sir, are a rat bastard.

For a few minutes there I thought I finally had a retirement plan.