Birthday party, cheesecake, jellybean, BOOM!

It is a common human impulse to believe one is living in the “end times,” the closing act of this long, ridiculous play that has been human existence. In centuries past, unsophisticated early man would, when confronted with an uncommon or destructive act of nature, attribute the cause to something mystical, unseen and malevolent that had decided, for some inscrutable reason, to wipe us all out with the wave of a gigantic, invisible hand. Silly things like the appearance of a comet or an eclipse, an earthquake or a worldwide pandemic reducing the world population by a third in the space of a week… really, it’s comical when you think about what used to upset people in Ye Quaint Olden Tymes.

As evolved, intellectually superior modern people, of course, we have the benefit of astrophysics, geophysics, epidemiology to explain not only the cause of these events, but the global perspective to understand them as something, while horrible, limited and local in scope. This of course frees us contemplate more reasonable threats to all of human existence, like nuclear holocaust, global warming and whether our not our computers were going to murder us all in our sleep because the calendar that came bundled with Windows 98 couldn’t figure out how to change from 1999 to 2000.

Advancements in the scientific understanding of how the universe functions haven’t been much of a salve for the apocalyptic preoccupation. Even knowing that end-of-the-world anxiety is really just a psychological combination of existential angst and narcissism borne of our inability to reconcile the absurd idea of mortality and the finite individual consciousness--the sad and childish “If I have to go, I’m taking all of you with me!”--doesn’t really help. All we’re left with as we stare into the blank void of a future without us is that nobody will really care if we’re plus or minus five pounds when they lower us into the ground for the last time. So go ahead and have that Twinkie. You deserve it.

All of this is why I don’t think I’m going to vote in November. I’ve been watching all the political television ads, paying very close attention to the stump speeches and the conventions and the rallies and the interviews and the only concrete conclusion I’ve come to is that shortly after the election, the world will at last come to an end.

Not just a whimpery, quiet end either; I mean a horrendous conflagration that will consume us all in a gigantic, sadistic fireball of hedonism, lawlessness and mean-spirited bad manners.

I know this mostly from the TV commercials. The Barack Obama commercials say if John McCain is elected, we can expect a future of unprovoked expansionist aggression but without any tax base to pay for it, which will mean all our debt will be bought up by Communist China, who will force us all to live in Alaska, paired up into a rough concubinage with teenaged hockey-playing ruffians before the last, wobbly stab of a crooked, aging finger hits The Button and ends it all in a hail of nuclear missiles we will welcome from the sky.

The John McCain commercials, on the other hand, suggest that an Obama administration will line us all up against whichever wall is handy and shake every last cent from our pockets in form of “taxes,” then take that money and ship it directly to the enemies of America, who will use it to buy dirty bombs and Japanese cars, which will then be used to beat us into physical and economic submission until we all choose self-immolation instead of contemplating a world where you can’t buy a Ford F-350.

These are the choices, people. They wouldn’t be on your TV if they weren’t absolutely true. Other democracies make fun of America because our voter turnout is typically around 50%, but honestly, with this much at stake EVERY SINGLE ELECTION, it’s not apathy; it’s paralysis. Any movement either way makes you an accessory. Seriously, how would you vote knowing those are your two options? I’m surprised anyone ever votes for anyone, ever.

The only good news is that we seem to have a knack for this. Every four years we get the same message: vote for the other guy and everyone dies. And yet somehow, through two and a quarter centuries, we’ve managed to avoid the eschaton promised us. Either we have an uncanny ability for spotting the Four Horsemen in the guise of ambitious governors and senators or somebody’s exaggerating.

But I can’t really say that I care. Because if the choice is between finally being right about the End of Days on one hand and some dude (or lady!) with some minor truth-issues on the other, I’ll take the second one almost every time.