Those lousy Mayans got it all wrong. As it turns out, the world did not come to a shuddering halt on the evening of 21 December 2012. For a range of reasons, this is a huge disappointment. For starters, it means my decision to not return my overnight rentals to the video store has backfired spectacularly. Worse still, having elected to not start my Christmas shopping on the off chance that human civilisation as we know it might end, I am now severely behind the eight, nine and ten ball.
Those lousy Mayans got it all wrong. As it turns out, the world did not come to a shuddering halt on the evening of 21 December 2012. For a range of reasons, this is a huge disappointment. For starters, it means my decision to not return my overnight rentals to the video store has backfired spectacularly. Worse still, having elected to not start my Christmas shopping on the off chance that human civilisation as we know it might end, I am now severely behind the eight, nine and ten ball.
My chances of getting a parking space at any of our major shopping centres at this late hour are, frankly, beyond slim. Not since the year 2000 and the whole ‘Y2K’ debacle have I been so let down. To be fair, the Mayans weren’t too far off the mark. Given that this year saw ‘Gangnam Style’ become a worldwide phenomenon, the claim of an imminent apocalypse seemed credible. There were other signs, too. For starters, I’ve noticed that many of my fellow road users have given up indicating when changing lanes. Perversely enough, this is an unambiguous indicator that these people have ceased to care and no longer fear the consequences of their actions.
Also, in the past fortnight the downstairs cat had started to look at me in quite a quizzical manner. This I readily mistook for further evidence of the fast approaching doomsday rather than, instead, a cat with too much time on its hands. I swear that every time I step into the car park, the creature sits under the lemon tree with its right eyebrow raised. Previously, I didn’t know cats even had eyebrows, much less that they could arch them at will. According to superstition, animals can sense impending disaster well before anyone else. On this basis, I thought the cat was trying to issue me with some kind of warning. Instead, I now believe the only message it was trying to send was ‘I think my eyebrow is stuck, please get help.’
I guess one of the reasons I’m so disappointed at the failure of the planet to turn into a cinder is that I was much better prepared for the apocalypse this time than on previous occasions. Frankly, my efforts ahead of the ‘Y2K’ thing were half-hearted at best. Like most people, I bought all the canned goods I could get my hands on before putting my laptop in a metal box and burying it in the back yard. But after human kind unkindly refused to unravel, I find that I’m still working my way through the canned food whilst intermittently digging up another spot in the lawn in the hope of finding my computer. It left a bitter taste in my mouth, although that could well be the tinned liverwurst. When I was busy nailing planks across the doorway to my flat, I convinced myself that this was a sensible precaution to keep zombies at bay. Sadly, the zombies never arrived and a hefty amount was deducted from my rental bond. And whilst it’s better to be safe than a member of the undead, it took a lot to convince me again that the world was about to go belly up.
It’s not easy preparing for the end of the world either. Let me simply say that when you live on the first floor, an underground bunker is really just your down stairs neighbour’s apartment. Granted, they expressed some level of surprise when I tunnelled through. Despite their misgivings, I thought their concerns would count for little when crunch time came. It’s something of an irony that had the world come to an end, they would have forgiven the fact that I turned their breakfast nook into an all-purpose shelter. But it is beyond awkward to be discovered crouching underneath the kitchen bench of your neighbour’s apartment in the middle of the night only to have the world continue merrily along.
I guess I should be grateful. There were others who went a lot further than simply carving an escape hatch in the kitchen floor and lowering a rope ladder into their shelter / neighbour’s apartment. Apparently, some folks in Russia paid a thousand bucks to take shelter in Josef Stalin’s personal bunker. What made the Generalissimo’s joint such an appealing option was not clear (High quality canapés? Plenty of seating? The box set of ‘Sea Change’?). These people are, apparently, entitled to a fifty percent refund.
Others steered clear of bunkers belonging to former Soviet dictators and headed for France. In the village of Bugarach, people gathered in hope of seeing aliens fleeing a local mountain. Nestled at the foot of Pic de Bugarach, it has long been claimed by locals that the mountain is inhabited by extra terrestrials. These same locals may be the very reason that E.T. decided to set up shop in the hillside rather than the town itself. It was expected that these creatures would hotfoot it back to outer space just before the earth disappeared forever. Alas.
Given that the world has stubbornly continued to turn, I have only hours to do my shopping. Time to get cracking. Although I have plenty of canned food, you can’t really give a relative a tin of stewed apricots. Perhaps an overseas holiday. I hear that Bugarach is lovely this time of year. As for myself, there’s no prize for guessing what’s on my list. What I really need this year is a new Mayan calendar to hang in the kitchen. Here’s hoping.