The End of the World
July 10th is just a few minutes gone, and I don’t know about you, but I feel safer already. It wasn’t the day’s activities, oh good god no. Hanging out with fabulous ladies who love your hair is probably the best way to end your existence on this earth, which is where I was tonight, at Megan’s birthday festivus, complete with dancing seals and bicycle-riding bears.
Megan is second from the left in this lovely group shot. I swear, leaving Kaplan takes years off your appearance, she’s never looked more vivacious.
But enough about the ladies, why all the talk about the end of the world, Patrick? What’s so bad about July 10th?
Well, I’ll tell you… When I was a teenager, working at McDonald’s, there was a guy there named Rob. He was a quiet fella, about 35 or so, with a nice new red Jetta that featured a license plate that read: July 10. Of course, I was charged with getting to know him well enough to ask him the significance of the date and frankly, I was a little scared to. It could have been anything, a dead relative’s birth date, anniversary with an ex-wife, something else depressing, but I was completely unprepared for his actual answer.
Me: “So, Rob, what’s with July 10th?”
Him: “That’s the day the world’s going to end.”
And then he just went back to making more quarter-pounders…
I’m sure you know where this one’s going. I managed to fanangle the scheduling so that he and I would be closing together on July 10th, and also managed to take my time that evening, so that at 11:59 I had just finished up and was plopped on the counter waiting for the clock to strike twelve like it was Times friggin’ Square.
The clock did indeed strike midnight, signaling a brand new day for the rest of the world. I looked over at Rob, who had also been staring intently at the clock.
Seeing the clock strike 12, he checked his watch to make sure, then looked at me and shrugged his shoulders.
“Maybe next year.” he said, then he walked back into the kitchen to finish wiping down the grill.