Dino-Flatulence and the 2012 Apocalypse

I've been thinking

(Stand back)

About the end of the world.

(Further back)

Isn't it possible that the Mayans simply ran out of ideas for cool calendar glyphs at the year 2012 AD, instead of all the other freaky meanings people have ascribed to the mysterious end to their prophetic year-tracking? I kind of prefer to think that. Otherwise, you know, it's the end of the world after Christmas next year. And that is so not okay. (On the up side, sales on December 26th should be phenomenal.)

I wouldn't put a lot of stock in the whole Apocalypse of 2012 idea (Dun! Dun! Dunnnnn!), except the weather has been super bizarro this year. Like, there isn't any. Go ski at Bob "The Sting" Redford's place and you'll have grass and rocks accompanying you down the slopes. This. Never. Happens.

More signs of weirdness: my kid has stopped wearing his coat to recess. Doesn't need it. Or possibly he's finding his independence. Which isn't so much weird as annoying. But I'm going to leave it as evidence. Also, we went sledding on grassy ice patches the other day. In addition, there's only been enough white stuff on our yard to shovel into one snow-cone cup and sing Frosty the Icee to. Finally, bees have been spotted menacing the hood in the past two days. Bees. In February. In the Rockies.

You could blame all of this on global warming, I suppose. Except I don't really believe in it. I do think it happens. I just don't think we cause it. If it is people-caused, how do you explain the warming that happened during the dinosaur era? Fossil fuels used for the Raptor-skin purse industry? Or perhaps Dinosaur flatulence?

That is a possibility. Those were some pretty monstrous digestive tracts.

Eh. I don't want to debate the origins of global warming. But this does remind me of a news snippet I heard on the radio a little while ago. Apparently someone in the government wants to place a limit on the amount of methane gas a given farmer's cows are allowed to emit.

Erm . . . really?

How?

Duct tape?

And billions of dollars of losses in exploding cows?

Here's what I think the Mayans were getting at: By 2012 AD humanity will have devolved into a swirling vortex of absurdity so epically bizarre it wasn't going to be worth carving another year on the calendar for. So they didn't.

As for me, I'm glad I'm going to be here for the end of it all. January 1st, 2013 will find me sitting on my globally-warmed front porch with my new 4-D glasses perched on my nose watching the cows across the way explode while my kids build Frosty the Sodman in the side yard. All to the sonic-boom of dinosaur digestion echoing down through the ages.

We'll give the Mayan's something to predict.