Pressdog.com

Y2-Quit It

By Bill Zahren
(Posted 12/30/99)

The arrival of the Year 2000 is now officially hosed, de-funned and totally screwed. New Year’s Eve is so incredibly overrated to begin with, but it took an of alliance incessant marketers, computers, black-helicopter conspiracists, political and religious fanatics, the hyper-anal and terminally suspicious to completely ruin the turn of the century/millennium. Now all that’s left is to pump a slug into the head of this whole wounded mess and put us out of our misery.

Thanks to the magpie, ranting spew from about every section of American culture, just hearing the phrase "Y-2-k" brings me inches from a blinding rage. I’m sure it was cute a few years ago when someone -- probably a marketer -- realized you could combine Y with 2k. It has a nice ring to it. That is until you put it on a cultural tape loop and play it over and over and over and over and OVER and OVER, and then turn up the volume and play it over and over and over again.

"Last chance to the MILLENNIUM to get great mattress deals!" some ad barks at me. I go out of my way not to go to that store. "BEST DEALS OF THE MILLENNIUM." "Millennium" is almost as overused and worn out as the cockroach-like "Y2k."

At first, I was inclined to side with the anal in saying that the millennium doesn’t officially end until December 31, 2000. But, now I say, "Get over it. Your anality about the end of 1000 years is tedious and infuriating." I saw a news story (how can you avoid seeing news stories on the approaching New Year) where a member of the Neo Hyper Anal was asked what the big deal was. 2000, 2001, whatever it takes. The guy answered, "OK then, one plus one equals nine." At least he’s not being juvenile and stupid about it. OK then, I’m rubber and your glue, everything you say bounces off me and sticks to you. It’s like being mad at me for celebrating at 11 a.m. on my birthday, rather than waiting until 6 p.m. when I was ACTUALLY born (just in time for supper). And, besides, I won’t REALLY turn 36 on Feb. 7, I’ll just START my 36th year. I actually FULLY TURN 35. Give me a freaking break already.

Besides, if the Math Anal People succeed, we’ll all just have to deal with this "best deals on garbage bags of the millennium" crap for ANOTHER YEAR. I really don’t think I could survive that. I blame the anarchists. We’ve all read about people who have hoarded up 45 tons of food and water, installed their own electrical generators and solar collection units and purchased an M1-A1 Army surplus tank online for the coming time of chaos. The other day, I actually thought "maybe I should get a gun." That’s just sick. I’m driving by the gun store, like I have a billion times, and that flashes through my brain. Because the hooligans will start running wild at 12:01, right here in Iowa, I guess. Geez. Get a grip, Bill. Then I pulled into the gas station to top off my tank and went to the bank to withdraw some serious cash -- just in case.

We thought about setting off some fireworks at 12:01 a.m. January 1, but I got nervous about what the neighbors might think. What if they mistake it for gunfire and some 64-year-old in curlers opens up on us with a shotgun? Who’s celebrating now, Sparky? She’d probably be screaming something about us not getting her water or firewood as she fired.

The whole thing, of course, goes back to computers. Way back when, someone cheaped out and used a two-digit field for the year rather than a four since it would require less memory. That decision led to this whole global mess. Nice. Somebody probably got a stock option bonus for that brilliant move. Way to go, boys. You saved 21% per computer and cost the rest of the world an estimated $300 billion to $600 billion and trillions more in aggravation. So we’ve all been in a frenzy to make sure our stuff is "Y2k compliant."

Because of the concerns, a ton of techie people will have to spend New Year’s Eve standing in their company IT center, waiting for something to smoke. Nurses have to be at the hospitals at midnight. Every cop and fireman in the world will be on call. They’ll start fueling the riot suppression helicopters at 11 and have the rotors turning by 11:56 p.m.

Then throw in all the computer crazies who will take any excuse to launch a new virus, terrorists who think the year 2000 is a nice date to set off bombs (like it’s the Year of Ammonium Nitrate or something) and the paranoid, hyper-suspicious who think that either the whole thing is a government plot or that every single possible bit of chaos will converge promptly at 12:01, and you have a giant prescription for depression.

It’s so bad that many of the public events designed to mark the New Year are either being canceled or going forward but with air cover and a battalion of security forces standing by. A big celebration at Seattle’s Space Needle got canceled for fear that some nuts would bomb the whole thing.

The only funny part of this whole deal is that greed, for once, isn’t being rewarded. Faced with the riot and famine concerns and hyper inflated ticket costs, a lot of New Year’s Eve parties are going belly up. Chortle. I heard a story about all the hotel rooms in Las Vegas that are still open. Promoters wanted something like $2000 a night. The public said "You’ll get nothing and like it." The only people cleaning up are baby-sitters who are scoring hundreds of dollars per hour. I say rake them for all they're worth, baby. You want to party, you gotta pay.

The whole thing’s going to go down as the Celebration that Wasn’t. That’s OK, because it’s turned into a fried piece of crap. New Year’s Eve always struck me as an arbitrary, forced-fun kind of thing anyway. It involves three of my least favorite things -- staying up late, dancing and drinking. So I almost always sleep through the turn of the year. This year I’ll probably end up trying to stay up late with the kids, watching TV, trying to a create memory for them of the turn of the century/millennium. (Let’s not get into that whole "when does the millennium really end" thing again.)

Frankly, I’ll remember this as the Ugly Hospital Test of New Year’s Eves -- something you have to endure, but that certainly can’t be over soon enough. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to re-arrange my stack of non-perishable foodstuffs.

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