Y2K, You're 2K

I’m not a big crowd guy, so don’t look for me in the mob waiting for anything to drop on New Year’s Eve. It has nothing to do with safety concerns and I have no problem with anyone else going, of course, but it simply holds no appeal for me whatsoever.

After all, if I wanted to get drunk and wait around all night for one climactic minute of excitement, I’d start dating again!

We’ll be home Friday night, waiting for the armageddon that’s sure to come with the advent of Y2K. Between now and then, we’re doing our final checks on Y2K preparedness around the house. As I write this, we’re fairly sure the staircase, toaster, and driveway will still function correctly come January 1.

Please, don’t write to me insisting that this isn’t the end of the millennium and the start of the next. Believe it or not, we all know that already, and we don’t care! As comedian Wayne Cotter says, it’s the simple excitement of seeing anything roll over to triple zeroes. Who doesn’t love catching that moment when your odometer evens up?

Why not look at it as an easy two-for-one -- celebrate it this time around, and then do it all again next year? But if you absolutely insist on being a purist, then go by the Jewish calendar, which hit Y2K more than 3,700 years ago!

I love hearing about these guys who will be sitting in their houses on Friday night with a shotgun pointed at the front door in anticipation of the horrors of the Y2K bug. Now, let’s look at this hypothetical with a modicum of logic. Let’s say that the Y2K bug does knock out the electricity, the water, and all the rest. What does that have to do with the lock on your door? Is your key not Y2K compliant? Will deadbolts suddenly unlatch? Somehow I don’t think so.

Instead of loading up on ammo, we have loaded up with Chips Ahoy. No, it has nothing to do with the Millennium Bug. It’s because our five-and-a-half-year-old daughter is going to try to stay up until midnight to see the New Year arrive. That’s going to be quite a stretch for her, so we’ll have the sugar ready to pump her up if necessary.

Don’t laugh. They’re doing the same thing for Peter Jennings during his marathon millennium coverage.

To be honest, the cookies are for me. Like a couple hundred million other Americans, I’m going to make my annual “drop a few pounds” resolution for the new year. Unlike most of them, I’m not fooling myself into believing that I’ll replace Ms. Lewinsky as the new Jenny Craig spokesperson.

So why the Chips Ahoy? The fine Nabisco product will serve two purposes. One, it’ll be my Last Cookie Opportunity for awhile. Secondly, it’ll help me bulk up just a little bit more, so when I get on the scale Saturday morning to start the year, I will have artificially inflated that number on the scale. Then, a few days later when the cookies have worn off -- boom! -- I will have dropped a couple of pounds without even trying. Nice confidence builder, right? Unfortunately, I know that I’ll slip very quickly back into my usual slovenly diet backed up with exactly zero exercise, and the resolution will be lucky to last to the second page on the calendar. Then it’s pizza and ice cream time again!

Yeah, I’m the only one who lives this yearly fraud.

See you in the New Year. If I can get the door unlocked, that is. For now, I have to go make sure our shower curtain is Y2K compliant.

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