ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, January 22, 1997 TAG: 9701220009
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: BEN BEAGLE
SOURCE: BEN BEAGLE
I personally would like to thank Worldwatch Institute for indicating that we are all doomed. We really needed that.
This is the kind of information we need to know when it's only January out there and nobody knows how many ice storms and power shortages lie ahead.
"Well," I said to the greatest station wagon driver of them all, "it looks like we had better get our affairs in order. These guys say the forests are giving out, there's too much carbon monoxide in the air, and the world's population is growing too fast to feed everybody.
"I'm doing what I can. I'm disabling all those chain saws in the basement. I'll never cut down another tree unless it attacks me first."
"Didn't they include the possibility that Mamie Beagle's little boy Junior might have radon in the basement, not to mention those strange rays that are coming from the ozone hole?" the driver said. "That's important stuff there."
"You may jest all you care to, madam," I said, "but this is serious. I was down at the recycling bins just yesterday, and I can tell you that this latest report has decimated morale.
"There was a veteran there who said she didn't see much use in continuing if we are all doomed anyway. She was really depressed. She threw No. 5 plastic into the No. 2 hole. She threw cardboard into the newspaper bin. It was awful to see her go to pieces that way."
"Why don't you take up a nice hobby?" the driver said. "Maybe you could build model airplanes again or maybe you could get into pottery."
"Oh, sure," I said. "And just as I'm finishing my first Stuka dive bomber or my first masterpiece of a flower pot, I'm overcome with carbon monoxide, the ozone hole gets me or I starve to death. I think I'll just keep working my crossword puzzles until the end comes."
"Maybe you ought to go back to work full time," the driver said.
"Are you kidding?" I said. "Do you think anybody is going to hire a person who's about to die a horrible death?"
"How about knitting?" the driver said. "Or maybe there's a support group for you weirdos who think the world is coming to an end."
That driver. She knows how to handle things. I'm forming a support group for people who are afraid of the end of the world.
You don't have to think that death rays are coming from the ozone hole to qualify for membership.
But it would help.
LENGTH: Short : 50 linesby CNB