Contrary to popular belief, “spontaneity” is not fun. This belief, I think, mainly comes from romantic comedies; not only is it completely silly to consider parts of the most contrived plot lines known to mankind “spontaneous,” it defies common sense to think you would benefit from something you didn’t plan. Given the choice, we pick what works best and make it a habit. Spontaneous events, like rain in the middle of a sunny day or a stock market crash, suck mostly because they are not what we planned for when setting out one day wearing Rainbows to buy oil futures.
Prediction, then, is essential. There are time-tested ways to augur, but, like all old things, they only sort of work. For example, sometimes birds fly in patterns because Zeus told them to, but other times they are just maliciously screwing with you. Old women, preferably with crooked noses, once were a dependable source of information about the beyond, but nowadays greener pastures featuring all you can eat dinner at 4 p.m. have persuaded them to give up the trade in favor of bridge. Shamefully, modern fortune telling has been forced underground, exiled and marginalized. Our society simply does not provide an adequate demand for their skills.
Nonetheless, I am willing to fill this void and put my credibility on the line for the following predictions. In interest of transparency, I must reveal my methods, even if this takes away some of the magic: I am assuming things will be basically the same in the next year, only different. This is, I believe, the method used by the AT&T advertisers in their “You Will” series from 1993, which predicted such innovations as GPS and Kindle, although the amateurs screwed it up by calling them e-maps and e-books.
First of all, Gitmo will not be closed “one year after,” or one year and three days after. California will remain broke and still will not turn a budget in on time. Cheap beer will remain popular among college students, until a Seventh Heaven reunion episode decries the practice of “beer ponging,” leading to a precipitous decline in amoral student behavior. Cabo will be shuttered, but Vegas will remain popular among divorcees who went to college in what will be known retroactively as the “Dark Ages.”
MTV will begin playing music during daylight hours and Girls Gone Wild will be a documentary on the Discovery Channel about female zoologists searching for the elusive ice tiger in the Congolese jungle. Companies will continue to go putatively “green” when making cost-cutting measures and/or charging more for inferior products. Cash for Clunkers, however, will not be extended. The economy will recover, and Cabo will be reborn as an industrial city focusing on paper goods and seal lion pelts. You will graduate. Engineers will take us to Mars and, disappointingly, Martians will not be found. Never missing an opportunity, Glenn Beck will run a special on the program and either how it signifies that America is the best or that Barack Obama is a communist. Invited to travel with the astronauts, Glenn Beck will travel to Mars and be left there. Sarah Palin will take over his time slot.
The New York Times will begin charging for online articles in 2011, and critics will lament they have sold their soul to save their body. College students, in protest, will make a Facebook group in order to express their heartfelt anger. Rupert Murdoch will snicker.
As with all predictions, these require action to address their implications. I suggest you start saving up free copies of The New York Times on your hard drive and stuff an emergency kit with a keepsake photo of Glenn Beck, a couple cans of Keystone and a list of Facebook contacts. It will be something fun for your kids to find under your bed when you, too, are old and at the home playing bridge after eating dinner at four.