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Just in time for the end of the world....
Published: 12/21/2011 1:02 PM
Last Modified: 12/21/2011 1:02 PM




So I return from what was the most serene and enjoyable vacation I’ve ever had, and what to my wandering eyes should appear but an email telling me I have a year to live.

And that I should get shopping.

It was, not surprisingly, from an online business – one of those websites that promise great discounts on novelty merchandise that few people in their right minds would even begin to think of buying.

Its sales pitch, if one could call it that, was that because Dec. 21, 2012, has been bandied about – thanks to the way the Mayan calendar has been interpreted – as the date of some sort of apocalypse, then this coming Sunday is really “The Last Christmas Ever.”

So get out those credit cards, decide if you are going to end up going to heaven or hell once the world ends, and shop accordingly. Those who imagine themselves bound for the pearly gates are recommended to pick up a copy of the Gloria Gaynor disco anthem “I Will Survive,” while those who fate is to face more fiery realms are offered buying something that featured chef Gordon Ramsey against a wall of flames.

More than that I cannot report, because the website promptly caused my computer to crash – and that’s why I hesitate to share the actual website, so that a similar cataclysm does not befall you, my noble readers (all three of you – mom, dad, my wife…)

The adage of “If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans,” more than applies to all of this Mayan calendar, end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it talk. The only thing one can say about any person’s prediction about the end of the world is that it will be wrong.

(Of course, if one of these doomsday prophets hits on the right date when the earth shall be no more, he or she won’t have the satisfaction of saying, “I told you so.”)

Actually, I think former Tulsan Dan Piraro summed up the whole Mayan thing the best in one of his recent “Bizarro” cartoons…as you see.



Reader Comments 2 Total
StarrHrdgr (last year)
I believe the end of the world was right after REM broke up, right?
Jayhawk Ken (last year)
James, you know the end times will not come until the day the Tulsa PAC puts real seating in the Doenges and Norman theaters.
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ARTS

James D. Watts Jr. has lived in Oklahoma for most his life, even though he still has people saying to him, "Don't sound like you're from around these parts." A University of Oklahoma Phi Beta Kappa graduate, Watts has received the Governor Arts Award, Harwelden Award and the National Conference of Christians and Jews Beth Macklin Award for his writing. Before coming to the Tulsa World, Watts worked for the Tulsa Tribune.

Contact him at (918) 581-8478.

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