Welcome To The Family!...On Second Thought, Nevermind

My cousin finally became engaged to his on-again/off-again girlfriend of six years last night. We all love her to deatg and were hoping they'd get it on track and she would officially become part of the family. However, we're now having second thoughts after the acceptance speech she gave in the kitchen this morning:

"Thank you. I look forward to changing my name and, also to learning all of yours before completely alienating you from both our lives. Happy holidays!"

Awesome.

It's The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year!

I have been home two days and all of this hilarity has ensued. Enjoy.
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(After seeing a bell ringer outside a store who looked like a pirate)

Cousin's wife: "He looks like...who's that guy on the Captain Morgan label?"
Me: "I believe that would be Captain Morgan"
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Crazy Aunt: "As soon as you land mijo, we have to go shopping for Christmas gifts. Then we have to come home and move furniture and clean for company."
Me: "...I don't live here anymore, I AM company."
Crazy Aunt: "No no no, we have to clean for better company."

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(While building an entertainment center for my niece's new TV)

Me: "Is the hammer still in this drawer?"
Uncle: "Yeah, it should be. I thought you already finished that?"
Me: "I finished screwing but now I have to hammer."
Cousin: "Didn't you have to both hammer and screw on the last thing you built too?"
Me: "Yep. Most furniture requires hammering and screwing."
Uncle: "Don't hurt yourself while hammering."
Cousin: "It is more dangerous than screwing."
Me: "Which is why I screw regularly but only hammer occasionally."

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Friend: Whatcha doin'?
Me: I just finished Christmas shopping
Me: I hate people
Friend: LOL
Me: In the stores! Not the people I'm shopping for! lol

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(After paying off some woman's layaway tab at Wal-Mart)

Me: She seemed all kindsa shocked that someone would do that for her
Sister: Well maybe she was confused. You look like the kinda guy whose g-string she should be stuffing money into. Not one she should be getting money from.

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(While watching "A Very Brady Christmas" at 2AM for no reason whatsoever)

Brother: "This is lame, can we watch something else?"

Cousin: "No! This is the perfect holiday movie. It's about a bunch of white kids who grew up in the burbs and had dreams and shit then became adults who got fucked over by life. Cindy can't trap herself a man. Jan married a gay man. Peter's a slut who prob has syphilis. Bobby is ugly. Greg's wife doesn't put out and hates his family."

Brother: "What about Marsha?"

Me: "She married a man named Wally. Life screwed her over too."

Cousin: "Probably worse than the rest of them, honestly."

Brother: "Enough said."

Aunt: "Better syphilis than a Wally."

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Me: Well what the hell do we do now that the world hasn't ended? I was so looking forward to the horsemen or zombies or something.
Me: Now I'm like a kid whose dad said he'd see them on Friday but then the dude never showed up.
Friend: LOL
Friend: Both are assholes for not showing up

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Friend: I am not so sure of that anymore
Me: Sure of what?
Friend: Of you loving me
Me: Seriously?
Friend: Nope.
Me: Good. Bc I ALWAYS love you more today than yesterday
Me: And now that we know there will be a tomorrow, I'll love you more then
Friend: LOL yeah...suck it Mayans!

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More to come in the next week, I'm sure. I adore these goofballs.

Mad World

It's been a week since the tragic shootings at Newtown, Connecticut's Sandy Hook Elementary School but it has gotten any easier to reconcile in my brain what happened. It's amazing how desensitized we all are these days to rampage shootings. At the time of Columbine we all sat riveted to our television screens because we couldn't believe what was unfolding before our very eyes. Now, we sit riveted because we can't believe "it" happened yet again. "It" being another shooting by a troubled young man in a public location, resulting in the loss of several innocent lives. I think it is because of this desensitization that I only half paid attention on Friday morning when a news headline spoke of a school shooting. I glanced at the headline but didn't have time to click the story because I had to take a phone call. In the middle of that call I turned on the TV and realized it was a shooting at an elementary school, not a college or a high school as I'd assumed, and it took a minute for that to sink in. Actually it took...well, it still hasn't really sunk in. How could anyone target 6 and 7-year-olds with that kind of rage and violence? They were just babies with no sense of what was going on, and they should never have had to experience something so heinous. There should be no such thing as a 7-year-old survivor of a rampage shooting, nor a 6-year-old murder victim. And it really makes you wonder about this world we're living on and whether we are indeed in the end times. Children being brutally gunned down for (as far as we know right now) no reason has to be some kind of sign.
It seems like only a few months ago that I was writing my post about the Aurora theater shootings, which took place not far from where I grew up. That's probably because it WAS a handful of months ago. And that right there is the brightest, redest flag that should serve as a wake-up call for this country. The NRA, usually the first ones to release a statement defending the right to bear arms after these incidents, went has gone silent in the wake of the Sandy Hook shooting. The reason being that there is no defense this time. Children were killed. Children were hunted by this psycho with a semi-automatic weapon. All of these shootings are tragic but you have to be a different kind of evil to shoot kids. And the NRA would have to be a special kind of stupid to defend that. True to form, they showed us just how special they are by demanding an armed cop be in every school in America, after blaming everything but guns for the shooting. According to the head idiot of the NRA, of these shooters knew there were armed officers at schools, they wouldn't even consider going in there with a gun of their own. Right. I'm sure that would solve everything. This guy had a semi-automatic weapon and attacked a school that has some of the best security in the country. Even if a cop had been posted there, he would have only needed to case the school for a week or so to determine where the officer was and what weapon he was carrying. Then he could've proceeded the exact same way, shooting the cop on his way in and continuing on his rampage. Someone who decides to commit this kind of crime is already so twisted in the head that they're not going to care if a cop is there or not. And it is completely ridiculous to even consider giving teachers guns. Even if they are trained to use them properly, the chances are still higher that they'll shoot a student or co-worker accidentally, or that a student will get a hold of a gun and injure themselves or others. Not to mention, I would not send my child to a school where anyone had access to a weapon of any kind.
We always say the latest incidence of mass murder will change things, laws will be written and guns will be more difficult to obtain. But then the news moves on to another story and we all forget about it until the next shooting happens. The same is true this time around, but it will likely go the way of all the other calls for change and we'll all be trying to make sense of another tragedy in three months or six months or a year. Lawmakers will claim that the reason nothing changes is because they meet resistance over tightening gun laws, primarily from Republicans and rednecks who whine about their right to bear arms. But this country was in a very different place when that right was given to us. It was a time when there was no police force and people kept guns to protect themselves from others. We no longer need that. We need to ban automatic weapons across the country and put those who wish to purchase guns under the microscope before they are allowed one. Currently, every state has different guidelines and waiting periods when it comes to buying firearms. New York has a ninety day waiting period, while California has banned automatic weapons altogether. Gun shows are popular places to get weapons because most do not have any kind of waiting period (guns purchased from a show were used in the Columbine killings). It really puts things in perspective when you realize that 21 U.S. states require waiting periods of 24 to 72 hours before you can marry (after obtaining a marriage license), yet in most U.S. states you can apply for a gun, purchase it and potentially shoot someone all in less than a day. You have to wait to commit your life to someone you love but not to take the life of someone you hate. There needs to be a complete overhaul of gun laws in this country. You should have to pass a mental health check that not only looks at your medical records but also delves into whether you've ever been involuntarily committed or come close to it. That should be a standard part of a background check when someone wants to purchase a weapon, and it should apply to gun shops, pawn shops AND gun shows. To make sure they comply, you impose stiff penalties for failure to adhere to the law. For example, if you illegally sell a gun that is used in the commission of one of these mass killings, you should be held just as responsible as the person who committed the crime. Of course, all of this has to actually happen and not just remain a topic of discussion until Sandy Hook falls out of the media spotlight. And that's the challenge.
We'll never know if different gun laws would have changed or prevented the loss of life at Sandy Hook, but some of the details that have come out so far are disturbing. Apparently the mother of the shooter was aware he had mental issues and did not like to leave him alone. If that's the case, one has to wonder why she didn't have some sort of security measures in place for his own safety and for hers? Why was she keeping weapons in a house that was already not quite safe? Why did she teach her mentally ill son to shoot guns when she likely knew it is illegal for those with mental issues to own them? Clearly he didn't just snap and decide to do this, it required planning. You don't destroy the hard drive of your computer just for kicks or in a fit of rage, it takes time to remove that and quite a bit of effort to smash it to pieces. Worst of all is that it seems like there may be no clear cut motive for his actions. Early on, the media said his mother worked at the school or that he had attended the school and that may have been part of the motive, but both of those have since been recanted. It seems as though the same profile always emerges of these people who commit mass murder; in their 20's, usually white, described as nerds or outcasts or "weird", book smart but socially awkward and most all of them are from quaint suburban towns - Littleton, Aurora, Newtown. You always hear the same thing about how people never thought it could happen where they live. But if I lived in a suburb, I wouldn't find it difficult at all to believe because those ares seem to be more susceptible to this kind of violence. I grew up in the inner-city and never worried this kind of thing, even after Columbine. Maybe a part of it happening in the suburbs is people having nothing better to do in such a quiet town than hang out with friends and get drunk and play Call of Duty or other first-person shooter games. But that's not the deciding factor because there are obviously thousands of kids who grow up in these towns and deal with the same boredom and never commit a crime. That's where mental illness and bad parenting come in. The Columbine gunmen built pipe bombs right under their parents' noses in their bedrooms and, although their parents had no advanced knowledge of the crime, they suspected it may be their children who were involved when they heard about it. They knew something was off but did nothing about it. Hell, even going into their rooms and poking around may have saved countless lives and averted disaster. I couldn't bring a paper clip into my room as a teenager without marking it down in our household inventory, forget about weapons or alcohol or anything else I wasn't supposed to have. The Sandy Hook gunman was an adult but it seems as though he was still living at home and, if his mother was as concerned as others have said, maybe she should've kept a more watchful eye on what he was up to in her house.
At the end of the day it's about the victims, who happen to be children in this case. I can't imagine how terrible it is to lose a child, especially after having dropped them off at what should be one of the safest places. It's terrible for this kind of thing to happen at anytime of the year but a week before Christmas has got to make it even worse. If you had gifts under the tree for that child, what do you do with them now? Remove them and keep them wrapped in a closet? If you lost your only child or your only child of that age, it's going to be awful to remove the car seat they used to occupy everyday. That's something that should be a proud moment when you're celebrating your little one being not so little anymore. But it won't be in this case. I understand one of the boys who died left behind a twin sister who didn't quite understand what had happened to her brother. I get worried if I don't hear from my sister for hours, I couldn't function or survive if she was suddenly just gone forever. I wouldn't understand that now and I'm 31, nevermind trying to comprehend it at age 7. Having experience with trauma and the sudden loss of someone I loved, I've always felt like it was worse for those left behind. Yes, the person is gone but the rest of us have to deal with so many emotions, the shock of what just happened and the realization that you will never see that person's face or hear that person's voice again. I saw an interview with the boyfriend of one of the teachers who was killed and it was like looking in a mirror a decade ago. The poor guy was understandably devastated and couldn't stop crying. They had only been together a year but he said he was jealous of those who had her much longer than he did. It was an odd feeling to be able to know the exact swirl of emotions that were inside him. And to know what lies ahead as he deals with all of those emotions. It won't be easy for anyone to move on. But hopefully those 20 children and 6 adults deaths will not be in vain and change actually will come.

You Wanna Give It A Go

The other day in conversation with a friend, I quoted the lyrics of "Lady Marmalade" (ain't no shame either!).  The opportunity to use those same lyrics came up again via IM but iPhone derailed me in spectacular fashion...

You Really Can't Be Serious If You Have To Ask Me Why, I Say Goodbye

Well, guess who finally grew a pair and told the she-devil who has had WAY too much control over him the last year and a half to hit the bricks? Ok, I'll tell you, it's me. And if ever there were a perfect time to do it, today was the day. Twice in the past week I've had medical issues and neither time did I get any sympathy from her. The first time she didn't care because a friend's father had just died and that took precedence over my silly little medical issue. The second time she actually talked to me about the medical stuff for a few, before saying she had to go because a friend had shown up at her door and they had to talk. I half understood that because the friend's mother is going through some stuff but the way she went about leaving the convo, by just saying 'gotta go, bye' and then hanging up put me over the edge. No, 'let's talk later' or 'get some rest and let me know how you're doing', just 'oh, someone better came along so I'm gonna go, later'. And I'm so fucking sick of that shit. I'm sick of being there when she needs someone and being cast out when she doesn't. I'm sick of feeling like such a damn burden. I'm sick of not being listened to, only to have her turn everything around on me so that she's the one who gets the apology. I don't know how anyone can be so ice cold to a person they claim to love. When I thought there might be some hope here, I texted her about talking things out. All she kept asking is whether or not I'm bowing out of us. I refused to answer that via text and said I'd rather we talk when she had time. The response spoke volumes. I got back silence. No more texts at all. So I called and listened to the phone ring to voicemail. I called again and she actually answered, sounding like she was in quite the jovial mood, but the phone cut off before I could say anything. I called yet again, no answer. Again, no answer. I gave myself a deadline of calling only until the top of the hour, and got no answer over and over again. And I know she was getting the calls because some were sent to voicemail after a few rings. As all this is unfolding, there are no texts saying she's busy and we'll talk later. No texts saying not to call anymore for whatever reason. Nothing. And I'm tired of nothing. It's all I've ever gotten from her. Twenty minutes after my last call she texted with' "What? I told you I was in a meeting". Right, you're in a "meeting" at midnight. I don't buy that for a second. I never responded to the texts, as far as I'm concerned she officially cut the cord when she chose not to answer the phone. Ice fucking cold til the end.
I went completely soft in this relationship and I'll never understand why. It's not like she's so amazing that it's worth the pain and the fighting. She didn't even offer me something I couldn't get elsewhere and it certainly was not the safest, most secure relationship I've ever been in. Why I wasn't able to walk away sooner baffles me. I know it used to be guilt; I felt bad leaving her to deal with all the negative crap in her life all by herself. Her family is a mess, most of her friends are fair-weather, and she hasn't landed a full-time gig since before we even began. That's the reason I didn't end it around this time a year ago, I still cared and wanted to be there for her. But the last six months or so (and maybe longer)...I don't know. It hasn't been about guilt. The dynamic has changed quite a bit between us. All of a sudden she got brave or something and a switch flipped that caused her to think she can do and say whatever she wants to me, no matter how abhorrent. And I've taken it. Because, every now and then, I remember how things used to be and I wish they were that way again. Until common sense makes an appearance, usually right around the time she's yelling at me about something. And I realize things will never be good again. I'm not happy and haven't been for some time. I've felt trapped 50% of the time and suffocated the other 50%. It's largely my own fault, I know. Even though I cared about her, I still had the power to not get sucked into her drama all the time. I could've said no, could've changed my number and erased her from my life. Hell, I tried. But I still could not slip her grasp. It's like I needed to get all the way into apathy mode before I finally understood it was time to go. And I've noticed it happening for months now. I've slowly stopped caring about things I used to ask her about and issues I used to want to help her work out. And that really hit home a few weeks ago when she threatened to hang up on me mid-argument and I told her I honestly wouldn't care if she did. I could tell it caught her off guard, that she was realizing the hold she had on me was slipping. Since then she's only had two settings - nasty or nastier. But then I guess she's always only had two settings, either she's a bully or she's a victim, sometimes all within the span of a few seconds. It was fascinating to watch but too much drama to deal with. In the end, we were both just getting by. She'd call when she needed something and I'd listen to her problems. She'd listen to mine and give this BS about wanting to be there for me and how we're a team. But once she was done breaking down, she'd go back to her oh so busy life and that was that.
So many things about her both fascinate and confuse me. She claims I demand so much from her, but that's never been the case. I've noticed subtle changes in the way we deal with each other and that is what I've tried to point out to her. We used to be somewhat functional and give each other a heads up about things. If she was gonna be out all night and not be able to talk, she'd say as much and everything was fine. Even if she was out til two, she'd still text before she went to sleep. Now she just disappears for hours and rarely texts me when she gets home from her nights out. When she finally does text the following day and I express disappointment about having not heard from her, she goes all dramatic and says I'm high maintenance. Then she talks about how she's not sure she can handle how high my expectations of her are. I'm sorry but I've NEVER had a relationship where asking for a single text was considered "high maintenance", or was such an unreasonable thing to expect. It's a matter of making sure you're, you know, alive after your nights out. But she made me seem like I wanted to clock her every move, which couldn't be further from the truth. The kicker is that when the shoe is on the other foot and I go MIA for hours, I get ten texts asking if I'm out hooking up with someone. Or at least I used to, back when she cared. Now she can't even be bothered to text that. She'll ask to talk later in the day, then tell me she's hanging with a friend at 7 and never text me again. Then she gets bent when I'm unable to talk the next night because I have plans. Yet I'M the one who demands too much. It makes no sense. The irony is that at the moment, I've never expected less from her. I don't expect "let's talk later for sure" to ever pan out. I know I won't wake up to a single text from her, even if she knows I was having medical issues the night before. I no longer buy into anything she's selling because I now know just what a terrible investment that is. And the more she claims this person she's become isn't her, the less I believe it.
So where do we stand now? Well, I'm on the, "don't give a fuck" side of the fence that she's still on top of. We had it out in nasty fashion the other day and she tried to impose some kind of deadline on us deciding whether we're together or not. But I don't do ultimatums. I leave for home in a week's time and will be gone the rest of the year. She swears up and down that if we're not a couple by this weekend, she's walking away. And that sounds eerily familiar to the ultimatum she issued this same time last year...that was followed by a second ultimatum around New Years Eve. However this holiday season seems to have brought with it the gift of apathy, so maybe she'll stick to her guns. If she does, then great. If she doesn't, then I guess I will have to actually block her number to avoid getting sucked back into the abyss again.

The Last One To Know, The Last One To Show, I Was The Last One You Thought You'd See There

Well I just had a banner day yesterday. I had a falling out with one friend, an interesting conversation with another that left me feeling terrible and, to top it all off, my cousin got himself a little drunk and crashed his ex-girlfriend's birthday party. (And Crazy Aunt is apparently the one who drove him to the party.) I'd rather not talk about the friend stuff, hopefully it works itself out, so let's indulge in a bit of escapism and analyze someone else's problem, shall we?
I don't even know what to say about the party crashers.  My cousin and this chick dated something like seven years, he was about to propose when she said she didn't want to get married. Months later, she gets engaged to some random dude and the cousin is devastated but takes it as his cue to move on. A few months after that, her engagement ends and he thinks that maybe they do have a future together, but neither of them reaches out to the other. Then he hears that she's dating some new dude and goes completely off the deep end. He spends the evening at dinner with the fam and finally lets out all that he's been keeping in; about how he's pissed off that she ended things the way she did, how he wishes he'd had the balls to tell her off before they officially parted and every other thing he wanted to say but didn't. So Crazy Aunt gets the idea of telling her all of those things now while he's filled with liquid courage. He's still in contact with her sister so he already knew the birthday party was going on, he just needed to find out where. For some reason, her sister told him this information and he and Crazy Aunt piled into the car and away they went.
Crazy Aunt and rhe cousin get to the party and he goes in and begins telling off his ex in front of everybody. His speech is slurred and she goes from shocked to upset about what's happening. She tries to talk him down outside the view of the party goers but he only gets louder. Her parents, who never really cared for him to begin with, call the cops. Fortunately, the officer who responded is a family friend and he just escorts the cousin home in the back of his cruiser while giving him a lecture. He's very lucky that all he got was a lecture. I just feel bad for him. He's an awesome dude and she kinda screwed him over in the end but he still loves her. He's tried to move on but hasn't found anything substantial in the last year or so and that sends him into this mode of feeling like he'll never find anyone. After a very long conversation he's decided to take a break from dating for awhile. He's not over her and until he is, there's no point in trying to build something with anyone else. I hope it works out for him. He deserves to find someone awesome.

Don't They Know It's The End Of The World

Now that we are T-minus twenty days until the end of the world (get excited!), there are a million shows on TV about prepping for the supposed big day. Some are about what we know will happen (solar flares), others are about various predictions made about the end of the world. History Channel had a mini-series last month about the various types of predictions that have been made throughout history. Each hour focused on a different person or group of people and their end of days predictions; the Mayans, Nostradamus, the Hopi and the Book of Revelation. The Mayan prediction is very well known and what many people think of when they hear our supposed expiration date of December 21, 2012. The other predictions I'd heard before but the special shed more light on some of them. The Hopi believe we're nearing the end of the "fourth world" and that the beginning of the end will be signaled by a blue star. What that star is, or if it's even actually a star, is not written. It may have already happened or it may be forthcoming. Nostradamus (whose predictions I'm very familiar with) believed the world would end with a great shaking, which could be an earthquake or could be a number of other things. The Book of Revelation is essentially the crazies guide to the end of the world but it also makes some good points. According to Revelation, the end of the world will consist of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. It begins with the arrival of the Anti-Christ (white horse), followed by war (red horse), famine (black horse) and finally the fourth horse which is pale and brings with it death. Sounds pleasant, doesn't it? So we have earthquakes, nuclear war, bio-terrorism, meteors, comets (more deadly than meteors, apparently), solar flares, volcanoes, tsunamis, and Jesus all in the running for the title of world ender. Any one of those things would be terrible and some of them seem like plots out of bad sci-fi movies but according to these science dudes, all are actually plausible and very possible. If you saw 'Contagion' (btw, don't see that if you're a germaphobe. I'm not one but that movie turned me into one for about a month), then you know how easy it would be to spread a disease that takes us all out in record time. If you're a space nerd then you know we wouldn't be able to see a comet in time to do anything to stop it from destroying us, and you know that even a small solar flare could devastate our technology for years (flares have hit in South Africa and Canada in the past and they've still yet to fully recover). No matter what the predictions, most refer to this event as 'the end of the world as we know it', which can mean many things. Maybe we all die at once, maybe we're just plunged back into the caveman days with no technology.
I'm a bit of a junkie when it comes to shows about the end of the world. I don't know why it fascinates me so much, it's not exactly the happiest topic to read up on, but I'll watch pretty much anything on the History Channel that talks about it. All of these shows have something in common besides the apocalypse - they all show people preparing for the end of the world. They call themselves "preppers", and no two are planning for the same disaster. Some strike me as buckets full of crazy, others as religious nuts but some just seem like regular people. At least until you see the shelter they've built in their basement and the stash of guns they have in their closet. They all have these backpacks they call "bug out bags", which they say they can grab and go should it all come down tomorrow. They have weapons and medical supplies and enough food for a varying number of days, the assumption being that they'll be to a safe destination in a few days or a few weeks. Some have built shelters underground in the wilderness or the desert (and none of them will disclose the location, less all of us unprepared folk try to find them) with air chambers and enough food and water for months. Some are teaching their kids how to shoot guns (and we're talking kids as young as 9 in some cases) and kill and gut animals and live off the land. Others are growing gardens in their backyards so they will have access to food. Most say that they will not help their neighbors or anyone else who isn't a member of their household when the end comes. These people have spent thousands of dollars on being prepared. What they're preparing for, none of them is exactly sure. But most have a single doomsday scenario in mind; a volcano or a nuclear war or a super bug. They all seem obsessive about preparing for their chosen disaster, to the point where their kids are outcasts at school because of how their parents are choosing to prep. But I can't help but wonder how some are missing common sense errors in their planning. So you have a garden in the backyard and can grow all your own food and raise fish and chickens. What happens if you have to go underground because something happens to make the air toxic? Dead. You have a car all gassed up and a map of where you and your family will drive to as soon as it's time to leave. What if you can't get in that car or can't get to your destination at all? Your backpacks aren't going to keep you alive very long if that's the case. You built yourself the best little bomb shelter known to man in the desert in Vegas and it'll comfortably accommodate you, your son and your wife. That's great but even if you survive and are able to come up above ground in a few months (or years), you won't be able to repopulate the earth by yourselves and there's no guarantee anyone else who survived will be near your location. There's even less of a chance that you'll have any mode of transportation available to take you to any other survivors. God forbid (literally, in this case) that you prepped for the wrong disaster and you die anyway without even having a chance to "bug out". Making it through the end of days is great and all but there will be some major cons to the one pro of survival.
The one thing I was struck by in these specials was what one of the experts said about fear. He talked about how even if the majority of people on earth are spared from an initial event, it wouldn't be long before things spiraled out of control because no one is rational when they're living in fear. When people don't know what's happening next, and especially when they don't know where their next meal is coming from, their actions are all guided by fear and fear is not rational. People will do awful things to others in order to ensure their own survival. There are a couple episodes of "The Twilight Zone" that are actually as relevant today as they were when they originally aired in the early 60's. The first is called, "The Shelter" and begins with a group of suburbanites having a dinner party thrown for their friend, a doctor. A few jokes are made about the doctor having spent many late nights building a fallout shelter in his basement, this being a time when nuclear war was thought to be imminent. The son of the shelter-building doc hears an announcement on the radio about unidentified objects being headed for the U.S. and panic ensues in the neighborhood. The doctor hustles his wife and son into the shelter and is preparing to close the door when his ill-prepared neighbors and party guests come back begging to be let into the tiny shelter. He only has provisions for his own family, so the doc offers up his basement for his friends but refuses them entry into the shelter. Things get ugly when everyone starts trying to barter their way into safety, throwing each other under the bus and throwing out reasons why they are the best candidate to live while the others face certain death. The angry neighbors end up literally knocking down the door of the shelter as the radio broadcasts that the objects were nothing more than satellites and there is no danger or reason to take shelter. One crisis was averted but another is just beginning as these people are now forced to reevaluate their relationships and their behavior. The second relevant episode is one of my favorites and is called, "The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street". It is also set in suburbia and begins with an object passing over the neighborhood, followed by a flash of light and then a massive loss of all power. Soon, everyone begins panicking about what the object was and why they lost power, a panic made even worse when a neighborhood boy tells of his comic books having had a similar incident that took place before an alien invasion, and how the aliens were disguised as humans. Stranger things begin to happen; lights go on and off in one house, another neighbors' car starts up by itself, and it becomes a full-on witch-hunt as they try to figure out just who among them is the alien. Things reach a fever pitch when more houses have lights go on and off, lawnmowers start by themselves and every other device seems to go crazy without reason. As the panic continues, the camera pans up to a hill overlooking the neighborhood where there are, in fact, aliens taking in the entire scene. They have been manipulating the power as part of an experiment to find out what the easiest way to conquer Earth would be. They conclude that all they need to do is let Earth's inhabitants destroy themselves. And the reason everyone flies off the handle? Fear.
There are many more episodes of "The Twilight Zone" that deal with end of the world themes but those two are the most relevant to what's going on today. People assume that humanity will take care of itself if anything terrible were to happen, but there really is no reason to believe that. Yes, there have been stories of people helping each other and sacrificing for total strangers in the event of an emergency. And no doubt there will be people who sacrifice themselves for others in the event of the biggest catastrophe of all. But the vast majority of people will be out for themselves and their families and will try to survive by any means necessary. Of course, all this is assuming that there really is some sort of major even later this month. I'm no expert, nor a prepper but my gut tells me that all of this is probably much ado about nothing. Will the world end at some point? Of course it will, it's inevitable. Everything that has a beginning has an ending. But I don't know that our time is up just yet. According to Revelation, the Anti-Christ has to first coax the world (yes, the entire world) into accepting a universal government and universal religion. It is only after that happens and he or she has complete power that they will be able to reveal themselves as the Anti-Christ, prompting the other three Horsemen to come on down and do their thing. We're not there yet and we won't get there in the next twenty-one days, so there's some good news I guess. Solar flares are supposed to happen and may affect things but just how bad the effects remains to be seen. I wouldn't be surprised if we are actually living our our final act right now but I don't think we're days or weeks away from the world being over. Then again, a comet could enter our atmosphere tomorrow and hit the bullseye on the 21st. And it is kinda scary that that is actually possible. But what good is it to live in fear and waste what may be your last days worrying about survival? If it is the end of days then no one, no matter how prepared, will be left out of the carnage. The preppers will continue to prep and the rest of us will continue to on about our lives, rarely thinking about the end of the world. Ignorance is bliss, they say. But consider this: I've already paid off all my bills for the year AND almost finished my Christmas shopping, both things that I typically do not get done until like December 24th at 11:00PM, if that. So it may really be the end after all, kids.