…and it’s time to panic

By Annie Stodola

You/Local Editor, paranoid person

So the Mouthing Off editor catches me freaking out about the end of days and makes me write about it. I hope you enjoy me pushing myself further toward emotional breakdown for your damn amusement.

One of my friend’s status updates was talking about the History Channel being obsessed with the world ending and I didn’t believe him but I was flipping through channels and saw that there was a Mayan prophecy show on.  I was curious so I watched it and it was a giant mistake.

It was so damn scary. Here’s what I learned: The world is going to end December 21, 2012. It could be anytime that year, but it’s most likely going to be that date.  It could be with a meteor, or ice caps, or a solar storm, or a plague or something but no matter what it’s going to suck and we’re all going to die.

The Mayan calendar stopped there, and while I wouldn’t normally agree with a group of people that sacrificed humans and worshipped snakes, the History Channel can make me believe. I’m very impressionable and when they tell me that science and Nostradamus line up with the Mayan predictions, I’m not about to argue. We’re boned.

Then they started talking about how biblical things tied into the predictions and the current state of the world. When I was younger, I read Revelations in the Bible and I always thought it was pretty and hopeful. Wrong. It’s all about how the world is going to be overrun by four horsemen who all basically just want to make our lives miserable and kill puppies.

They were talking about how past and present world leaders might actually be the horsemen. So basically, we’re already on the path to the world ending. Awesome.

After the History Channel made me seriously want to crawl into a hole and hide from Armageddon, I turned on the Discovery Channel, looking for some sort of solace from scientific experts on the end of the world. They started out by saying the 2012 theory was just myth. I felt better and was grateful I had listened to a voice of reason.

And then they mind-F’d me.

It was all like “the Mayans didn’t know anything.” But then they told me realistically, we’ve overstayed our welcome on the planet and the end of the world is coming any day now, probably sooner than 2012. The TV said we should really start preparing for the end now because the sun won’t heat us forever and the continents will shift and there really could be a solar storm and it could happen like right now. So much for making me feel better, science. You ass.

All of this wouldn’t bother me as much except that if judgment day comes, I wasted my whole life. Granted, I do a lot of stuff I enjoy and have some pretty excellent times with my friends and family and all my cats, but I haven’t really done anything with my life.

I want to teach inner city kids and save the rainforest and punch all the bad people I know and find a Prince Charming and get a bunny and write a better article than this one.

I basically hate the History Channel for making me believe I don’t have time for all of this because I need to be building an underground freezer to save seeds to grow crops to replenish the world because it’s about to end and so if the Mayans and Nostradamus could mind their own damn business and let me get back to my Supergirl meets Prince Charming fantasy, that would be fabulous.

Until then, I’ll be hoarding bottled water and repenting and nuke-proofing my apartment.

…and I feel fine

By Dan Simons

Mouthing Off Editor, apocalypse ready

A long time ago, a group of people not smart enough to have a civilization that could last into this century said an age will end.

Now, in these times when we can send libraries of information across the globe in less than a second and live to be over 100, people are taking this prophecy to heart and believing the world will end.

This is why I hate people sometimes.

The world will not end, just like it didn’t collapse into the Stone Age when Y2K came and went. Swine flu did not kill us all. And the zombies haven’t come… yet.

The History Channel, running off their recent kick of not talking about history, keeps playing shows where they splice CGI footage of asteroids and nuclear bombs with Mayan pyramids and images of old Bibles.

I remember when they used to play shows about how much of a badass Teddy Roosevelt was, or how Caligula was a raging psychopath, or how Spain once ruled damned near everything on the planet.

Now we mainstream shows saying the same thing every conspiracy theorist nut job with a YouTube account has been saying for years. This is in between shows about truckers and loggers and other, again, non-historical programs.

We’re still in that period between the theatrical and DVD release of “2012” by Roland Emmerich. The man spent $200 million and further ruined John Cusack’s career to perpetuate apocalyptic hype in the weak minded.

This is the same man who tried to kill us all in “Independence Day” and “The Day After Tomorrow.” He clearly has a grudge with humanity.

I admit I’m curious to know how exactly we’re going to go out, because hopefully we go out with style. I’ve seen too many movies and played too many video games to not think about this. We’ve got global warming, getting slammed by an astral body, plagues, famine, war, radiation, trans fat, Furby’s coming back to life and organizing an uprising, or Facebook going out for more than a day causing a global, humanity-ending riot.

If, and I can’t believe I’m entertaining the idea, we do all perish on Dec. 21, 2012, then who cares? If it really is the end of days, there is nothing we can really do about it. Global panic? More like global party. Drink all the booze before the asteroid hits and run wild and naked in the streets, punch your middle school bully in the face and don’t tip the barista, because no one will care on the 22nd.

What if you do survive? Do what you can only do when most everyone else is dead. I’d be doing doughnuts in my car on Ford Field, dropping paint cans off the Renaissance Center and totally putting my feet on the seat in front of me in the theater. I’m going to pee in Beer Lake and turn the Science and Engineering Building into my own private Tower of Dan. The end of the world could be totally awesome.

But it won’t happen in our lifetimes. Yeah, the sun will eventually expand in size and fry every living organism into oblivion in like 500 million years, but our descendents will be Tweeting about it from Mars by then.

Should you freak out about the end of the world? No, that would be stupid. Should you live your life as if the world was ending tomorrow? Yes, live while you can, and live it up. Pretend the zombie mutant cyborgs are coming tomorrow and you have to do everything you want to do before you die.

On Dec. 22, 2012, I will still be alive, doing last minute holiday shopping, and laughing at Annie Stodola.