Are We Then Yet?
Time’s a funny thing, isn’t it?
(I hope so, since this is s’posed to be humorous.)
Day-um! I been busier than a Viagra salesman at a whorehouse. Ain’t NEVER enough time.
First off, it’s an even year. I’m an odd kind of a girl. Gimme the odd years…no gawd damned elections for one thing. Throw all the politician in a box. Cage matches should decide who runs the government. Let ‘em fight dirty, hell, they do anyway. Wouldn’t it be refreshing to have one of ‘em do a commercial that said, “Hi! I’m Joe Sleazy. I’m running for State Auditor. I know you don’t know what that is, hell I don’t either, but my advisor says it’s a stepping stone to bigger things. It doesn’t matter anyway; I’ll have a bunch of minimum wage flunkies doing all the real work. I’ll be out raising money for my run for the Senate. Paid for by Sleazy campaign contributions I accepted in return for favors when I’m elected. See you in 2009!”
Wait a minute, back that thought up. (Cue the sound effect of going-in-reverse-alarm: BEEP BEEP BEEP!)
How ‘d you just say the year in your head? You know, that little inside-your-brain voice? (Hopefully there is only one, and it isn’t telling you that you are Napoleon, or that trees are actually space aliens. They are, but we ain’t supposed to let on until…oops, never mind.) Did you say, “Two thousand nine”? Or “Two thousand aught nine”? Or “Twenty oh nine”? Or “Nineteen ninety-nine plus ten”?
How are we ever going to get a handle on time if we can’t agree on how to say what year we’re in?
I know what is responsible for this mess - Science fiction.
Way back in the last millennium, Arthur Clarke wrote a book, and Stanley Kubrick made it into a movie, and ain’t nobody been right since. Yeah, you know which one I mean, it had the monolith and the monkeys and the ending that no one understood but everyone had to act like they did.
And it was pronounced Two Thousand One, A Space Odyssey.
So we all thought, “Well, if those geniuses can make a book and a movie that no one understands, and pronounce it Two Thousand One, that MUST be the correct terminology for the next millennium, which no one can even agree when it starts.” So here we are six or seven years in, (depending on which camp you fall into) still unsure of what to call this millennium.
Or this decade.
The LAST decade was the 90’s. So this one is….uh….the oh’s? That doesn’t sound right. The aughts? That’s worse. The single digits? That’s the one the meteorologists use, and we all know they’re right up there with science fiction writers, on the scale of making grand pronouncements that no one understands.
(A small clap of thunder is heard, and I keep telling myself that meteorologists cannot MAKE the weather…can they?)
Scientific types will tell you that time is made up of steady, unchanging units of measure: minutes, hours, days, etc.
Baloney.
The time unit called a minute can fluctuate wildly in length. A standing-in-line-at-the-DMV minute is nowhere close to the same length as a reading-a-good-book minute.
Ask a parent, and they will tell you that an hour spent in a vehicle with small screaming children is at least 500 minutes long.
I know for a fact that a working-against-a-deadline hour has twelve minutes in it.
So I ain’t doin’ so good with this whole time thing. I’m not havin’ a good day/week/month/year/incarnation.
My car’s dead and that makes me pissy. Ain’t got no money to buy another one. Got crappy credit, but that doesn’t matter ‘cause I couldn’t make the payments on another car anyway.
Every other commercial on TV (and I do l-o-v-e my TV) is some lying liar tellin’ lies about themselves and whoever the other liar is.
And there ain’t never enough time, no matter how you measure it.
But…(you know I’ve always got a big but - LOL) I’ll keep on truckin’. (Whoa - flashback! LOL)
I got a lotta good years left in me, despite my many vices. If nothin’ else, I gotta hang around to annoy the crap outta my enemies. I ain’t no quitter. I’m a fighter and an optimist, and I’ve got enough spunk left in me to last out a boatload of steady, unchanging units of time.
I’ll write a bestseller and make a lot of money and then run for political office….
:)
Categories: Humor
Posted by Marti @ 
Hi Marti, I tried hard to promote this decade as the “naughties” in the vain hope that it might encourage a change in my romantic life, let’s just say it was a total failure, that’s the promotion and the changes.
October 10th, 2006 at 6:49 am
I “read” 2009 and think two thousand nine. But when I’m just talking, I would say Oh Nine. As in, “my car is a ‘98, I need to get something like an oh-four.” When someone refers to “ought-four”, that tells me they mean 1904. Not many folks left saying that, but I read it occasionally.
October 10th, 2006 at 7:35 am
i say two thousand six when i speak of what year we are in…
Oh- and you have my vote should you ever run!!
October 10th, 2006 at 9:36 am
“Two Thousand Six” and “oh six” for me.
This was a well written post, Marti - you are a wonderful writer and your ‘time’ will come (lets just hope it is in this incarnation! lol).
October 10th, 2006 at 9:53 am
*chuckle* I’m glad you stopped by and visited my blog, yer damn funny! I hear ya about the DMV minute…it’s hell.
“Two Thousand Six” for me
October 10th, 2006 at 1:37 pm
“A standing-in-line-at-the-DMV minute is nowhere
close to the same length as a reading-a-good-book minute.”
Oh, Marti. I love the way your mind works…
Rock on.
~m
October 10th, 2006 at 9:54 pm
Hey!
The comment whore sent me!
I am enjoying the read of your stuff!
Very funny.
I really like dry funny, right up my alley.
October 11th, 2006 at 12:09 am
Here from Charles and say hello from Norway!
Good luck working with your bestseller and please keep us posted so that we know when and where to cast our vote:-)
October 11th, 2006 at 2:54 am
Even if you get folks in the USA to agree on the way the years are said, it’ll probably be different in the rest of the world. For one thing, 2001 (as in space odyssey) is pronounced ‘Two thousand and one’ in the UK - we always put the ‘and’ in with numbers such as a hundred and ninety, or two thousand and six, which is how I would say the current year.
Oh, and I’ve heard this decade called the ‘naughties’ - seems like the best way of describing them. (’nought’ is what we say for zero, not ‘aught’… another difference I guess).
October 11th, 2006 at 6:20 am
I’m all for this being the naughties decade. And next one, too!
October 11th, 2006 at 12:47 pm
OMG! Geez, Marti… why haven’t you written a bestseller already? Your writing is, as always, amazing! It’s like the love-child of a drunken one-night stand between Mark Twain and Erma Bombeck.
October 11th, 2006 at 3:43 pm
I’ll write a bestseller and make a lot of money and then run for political office….
Right on, Sista!
October 11th, 2006 at 10:32 pm
I’m voting for YOU, Marti, whenever you should decide to run. And by the way, I remember trying to watch Two Thousand One, A Space Odyssey. TWICE. Fell asleep both times. If you are elected will you ban that damn movie for good? I hope so.
October 11th, 2006 at 10:57 pm
Gem of a post, Marti. I actually - shhh don’t tell anyone - I actually laughed so suddenly I snorted. Here’s some fun - mute the TV and make up their dialogue for yourself. ie: *horrible picture of opponent* “This is my secret lover. I am a jelly loving tortoise boy and I SWEAR he will be my wife for my hundred-year life-span.” It’s much better than listening to them. I’m plugging you over at The Pen.
:)
Leigh
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October 12th, 2006 at 5:00 pm
Time keeps on slippin’, slippin’, slippin’ into the future…
You are SO right about the differences in a minute. When you are enjoying yourself, a minute slips by quickly, but when you are enduring something, a minute goes on forever.
October 12th, 2006 at 5:22 pm
I love the quote from one of the Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy books:
Time is an illusion….lunch time doubly so!
October 12th, 2006 at 5:36 pm
I’m a naughties man myself. Just wouldn’t be prudent to call ‘em anything else. I’m with you concerning the minutes! Oh Mylanta, if I’d just had a few more here in the past six weeks maybe I would’ve gotten something constructive done. Should you need a campaign slogan: “Marti’s Great in Naughty Eight.” All this and “Keep on truckin’” too! You’re a trip!
October 15th, 2006 at 11:18 am