Tuesday, June 06, 2006

It's the end of the world as we know it (and I feel fine)

Today is 6/6/6. This means, according to some people, that the end of the world is nigh. I hope not. I just finished vacuuming my carpet and the last thing I need is some lout of an Armageddon getting mud all over my floor.

I don't know how I feel about the Last Judgement. On the one hand it means I get to be all snooty and stand around criticising. How the special effects are tacky. How that guy blowing the trumpet isn't a patch on Wynton Marsalis. On the other hand, I haven't made up my mind yet whether I really want an afterlife. It's kind of like deciding whether you want dessert, isn't it? You suspect it might not be good for you. You figure that given how much life in this place has sucked so far, Heaven is probably going to be a disappointment too. The spiritual equivalent of a blog of half-melted vanilla icecream. With Bournvita syrup on top. The trouble is, you know that if you pass it up, someone or the other is going to say to you "You went through life and didn't stay for the last course? What's wrong with you? That's the best part!" Plus you're kind of reluctant to get up from the table anyway.

I think the problem with this whole afterlife thing is that you can't get any really useful information about it. What you need is a Lonely Planet guide to Hell. Something that will get past all this Key Attractions stuff the holy texts keep going on about and cut to the important details. Like whether you need an adaptor for your laptop. Or how much a taxi from the Airport to Downtown costs in Hades. Half your soul? A quarter? Do you need to tip?

The thing that scares me is - if there is a Pearly Gates, what's the bet that it's like a visa office? You think you have an appointment with Death. You show up all punctual. There are 13,784 auntyjis and unclejis in front of you. You stand in line for hours. Finally you get to the counter and it turns out that the document your recording angel gave you is a fax and they need to see the original. You're going to Hell. Sorry. Next.

Someone once told me that he had this dream where he woke up one morning and he was the only living person left on the planet. Apparently the angels of death had overlooked him. Some kind of clerical error. Anyway, he said he was pretty depressed about it and everything until he tried going into office and it took him all of 12 minutes to get from Bandra to Nariman Point. This cheered him up no end. He spent the rest of the morning driving up and down Marine Drive trying to get from one end to the other in under 3 minutes, until the angels of death came along and arrested him for speeding. Apparently the speed limit in the afterlife is 40.

Personally I think this whole End of the World thing is just a rumour. I'm pretty sure the world's never going to end. But then I thought Munich was never going to end either, and then it did. (Dear God. Even if there is an apocalypse coming, can it please not star Eric Bana? ANYTHING but that.) Still, at least I've got my iPod. Sound-cancelling headphones in my ears, Hendrix playing, I probably won't even notice that the world has ended. They'll have to tap me on the shoulder and point.

But maybe I should take some precautions. Nothing serious. Just, you know, in case. Don't worry, I'm not hoarding up on canned food or anything like that (that's all I need - an eternity spent eating Chicken Noodleos). I just figured I'd put off doing my laundry till this whole 666 thing had passed. What's the point of having five clean shirts if the world is going to end tonight? And with all that fire and brimstone stuff, I'm pretty sure no one's going to notice the way my socks smell. And this way, I'll actually have saved 10 whole quarters. That's important you know. Worlds come and worlds go, but you never have enough quarters when you need them. I wonder if they have vending machines in Hell? With my luck they probably have nothing but Diet Cherry Coke.

Oh, well, there's always reincarnation. Trouble is, I'll have nothing to wear.

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17 comments:

Penrick said...

I decided not to work too hard today because if the end of the world was really coming, I wasn't spending the last few hours working my butt off. There is still a few hours left, so I bought a bottle of wine and decided to watch tons of tv. Why pay bills or clean the bathroom?

I think when I hit the Pearly Gates, they won't find my name for Heaven or Hell. I never really fit in here on Earth, so I don't expect much when I die. As far as an afterlife, please. Knowing what we know, would we really do anything different? And if we did, wouldn't we want to do something different in the after after life? Remember, our society had 312 kinds of cereal. Are we ever happy?

Too much thinking. I may only have 4 hours left.

Themadi said...

Oddly, the fact that it was 666 left me cheery all day today.

this was fun to read:)

MockTurtle said...

Your hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia is misplaced. Apparently the actual number of the beast was 616, not 666.
Now, the question is - should we follow the US or the European date convention when trying to time the Armageddon?

The ramblings of a shoe fiend said...

Ok. It's over. And unfortunately we're all still here. Now please wash your socks. I can smell them way here in London.

dazedandconfused said...

Neat!

dhoomketu said...

Falstaff, Nice excuse for not cleaning your shirt. Tch-tch. But then, since when have students started washing shirts every day?

Anonymous said...

The end of the world and all that...Ah! so it was just a ruse to get out of doing some mundane chores!

Nice try, better luck next time. Besides you have a long way to go before this dinner party serves up its last course, so guess you'll have to wash those shirts afterall.

A fun post, btw. :)

~N.

Swapna said...

Totally agree about the quarters. Never have enough of them. :)

Hey ... how about 7/7/7? Is that going to be another end of the world thing?

Nice post!

Falstaff said...

penrick: That's the spirit

sony pony: Get thee behind me Satan!

MT: okay, this is too much. It's bad enough when women give me fake numbers so I can't call them, but now the Devil herself is doing it?!!

shoefiend: Nah. Better to wait another day. Maybe the Beast is just trying to tempt us into a false sense of security.

d&c: thanks

dhoomk2: speak for yourself. Me - I wash my shirts every day. Most days I even remember to add detergent.

N: thanks

c2c said...

Why would you write a blog post on 6/6/6? Did you think anyone was going to read this after the world ended? Not even google servers can have enough backups to save our data from the armageddon! Hilarious post!

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