Don't Take Me Seriously - Book - Page 202
Featured commentary
Daylight saving time and solar flares
S
o, OK, daylight saving time
begins Sunday at 2 a.m.
And we’ll be “saving” a
little more daylight, a little more
sunshine, each day — you know,
just in time for the sun to fry us
all with protons and X-rays.
Oh, do I overstate?
Well, apparently, that jokester
the sun had a big “ta-da” planned
for us, to kick off the time change
on Sunday. But, as he suffers
from premature flaring, he
couldn’t wait, and he let loose
an intense solar flare this past
Tuesday.
This little oops was classified
as an X5.4-class event. And it
unleashed a coronal mass ejection
into space, which, zipping along
at 4.5 million miles per hour, was
scheduled to reach the Earth.
... Well, just as i am writing this
in the wee hours on Thursday ...
So, as my bedroom shakes like
the Enterprise during a Klingon
phaser attack, and the power
goes out, I scrawl this column in
fits and starts with a pencil on a
pad, illuminated by the auroras
Jim
WALKER
DON’T TAKE ME SERIOUSLY
dancing in the sky outside my
window.
Small things made of ferrous
metal are chasing each other
around the room as if they had
been enchanted by Harry Potter,
and everything electronic is
humming and bouncing and
throwing off sparks. The starter
motors of every car in the hood
are grinding away, all on their
own, and someone is screaming
outside my walls.
“My iPhone! Oh God, what do
I do without my iPhone?!”
... Some time later ...
Whew! That was intense. And,
as I crawl out from beneath my
mattress, I take stock … and, you
know, dutifully start typing at
my computer, which, amazingly,
seems unaffected. In fact,
nothing is noticeably different —
except that my GPS now thinks
I’m in Cleveland, my screensaver
has become the grinning face
of Bob from the ExtenZe
commercial, and my 10-pound
iron hand weights have locked
together in a cross that hesitantly
clings to the ceiling just over my
head.
But I’ve worked under pressure
before.
... Some time even later ...
Now, you may be a deep
sleeper, and thus may have
missed that incredibly frightening
ordeal Thursday morning.
And there is obviously some
kind of magnetically induced
forgetfulness going on, because
no one but me seems to be
talking about it.
Which begs the question:
“Hey, Jim, how are you going to
connect this to daylight saving
time?”
Well, OK. Here’s the deal.
The truth is, the change to
daylight saving time will not
lengthen our daylight hours. But
it will shift them forward in our
schedules so that we can spend
more time outside in daylight
after work.
And, thus, we will be
spending more time outside
the protection of our lead-lined
bunkers, dancing naked in the
sunlight to show tunes — all
while geomagnetic storms,
resulting from the sun’s current
preoccupation with flares,
reprogram our brains and even
our “cellular memories.”
We will begin to forget who
we are, where we are headed
in life — and even what we
had for lunch. We will find
ourselves going home to new
families, and they won’t notice
the difference. The rich will
forget they are rich, and the
poor will forget that there is
now money available.
Dreams will be our new reality,
and “reality” just a bad dream.
Wars will become rumors of
wars, which will shrink to idle
gossip and, eventually, fairy tales.
We will all just get along because
we won’t be able to remember
why we were angry.
On the cellular level,
our bodies will begin to be
rejuvenated like Benjamin
Button, and though we’re
headed for diapers either way,
at least this way they will be
smaller and take up less space
in the landfill.
We will forget our cravings for
caffeine and alcohol and, instead,
start Jonesing for buckwheat and
radishes.
The stages of evolution
will reappear in our bodies
at inconvenient times, and
vestigial tails will become
the norm. Men will develop
pouches for their self-conceived
young, kind of like sea horses,
and women will become — well
— obsolete.
Oh, and those who used to
know they ate asparagus will
now smell Juicy Fruit.
My friends, it’s the end of life
as we know it — and just in time
for spring.
Comment at jwalker@thesignal.com or at http://Twitter.
com/DontSeriously.
