Friday Morning Latin Lesson, Vol. C

This is the end, beautiful friends. This is the end, my only friends, the end of our elaborate plans, the end of everything that stands. It's all over. Kaput. Finito. Done. Signed, sealed, delivered. Finished.

This will be the last Friday Morning Latin Lesson post. Fitting that I end on number one hundred, no? Or that someone has decided to end it for me.

I speak, of course, of the doom descending upon us tomorrow. If I may suggest something, let us gather together and sing Track 6 from Document, and no, it is important that you do more than just scream "Leonard Bernstein!"


That's right. May 21st marks the be-all and end-all of our time together, friends. Or so spake Harold Camping, the crackpot who has developed this crazy notion of the world crumbling to an end. Curiously, Camping's vision of the End of Times starts with a massive earthquake. This is eerily similar to the end time in Norse mythology, wherein Loki breaks free from his tethers beneath the Earth, and the surface feels it as a quake.

Camping, however, has the power of math behind him. He's basing all of his calculations on the founding of Israel after World War II. The numbers are clearly there in the Bible. Plus, there's the fact that Jesus clearly stated that 7000 years after the Great Flood of Noah, He would return. And we all know that the Great Flood of Noah took play on May 21st, 4990 BC, right? RIGHT??? I mean, 40 days and 40 nights were crammed into that little span of 24 hours, you know. I mean, math, people! It's all right here in numbers (a book of the Bible, don't forget!).

You know who else had math to support his End of the World thesis, right?


In case you needed a reference, here is the site where I got these sweet facts of Biblical truth: Coming May 21: Apocalypse 2011

Oh, and here's another awesome website (really, no sarcasm) about all the failed predictions of the world coming to an end: A Brief History of the Apocalypse.

Anyway, this shit is old hat to me. When I was about nine years old up through at least my sophomore year of high school, every day during summer break was a living nightmare. I say that because I would get up and, while trying to eat my Aldi-brand cereal, my mother would lecture me on all the prophecies in the Book of Revelations. Every day, I would hear about the second coming of Christ, the Rapture, the Tribulation, the thousand years of peace followed by the Devil breaking free from his chains once more before finally getting tossed in the Lake of Fire.

Every day. All summer long. Until I was fifteen.

This was one of the reasons why I would write passionate confessions and apologies for lustful actions after fantasizing about one of my classmates. I was always terrified that Jesus would be returning to Earth while I was in the middle of a good stroke. You don't want to meet the Lord with your cock in your hand. Shit like that can weigh on a young man's conscience.

Of course, I never thought to question: my mother was telling me these things, and she wouldn't steer me wrong, right? RIGHT? So, essentially, for the first eighteen years of my life, I lived in fear of the imminent return to life of a sanctified demigod and the subsequent culling of souls that he would harvest in the wake of his trumpet blasts.

In light of the imminent demise of the world, what with such "evidence" laid out before us, I think this is the only thing that can be said:

Credo quia absurdum est.
Pronounced: "Cray-doh kwee-ah ab-soor-doom est."

Final translation in the hovertext

I have to work all day on Saturday. Fortunately, the book store has big windows, so I can watch as all the shit goes down. Unfortunately, Monsieur Camping does not provide a time. Hell, it's already May 21st in Australia!!! I'm personally hoping that the college girls are hanging out in the store, because when shit goes down, I'm taking full advantage of the confusion. My go to line? "Well, you're fucked anyway, so..."

The damnedest thing is...May 21st in the Rapture, or the Second Coming of Christ, when He pulls the faithful souls from the Earth. First will come the rising of the Dead who were faithful, and then the living will be harvested. That marks the beginning of the Tribulation, where the entire world will erupt into war and the Anti-Christ will begin assembling his minions.

I told you had this shit down pat.

According to Camping, however, the Tribulation only lasts for five months. So, God will then destroy the world on October 21st, 2011...which is one day after my wedding anniversary. So, not only is the world going to Hell in a handbasket, I still have to remember to buy an anniversary present!

Fuck my now-abbreviated life.

And, I don't know about anyone else, but I'm wearing my Notre Dame sweatshirt all day on Saturday. If the Simpsons have taught me anything, it's that Catholic Heaven is so much more awesome to be in than regular old boring Protestant Heaven.


So, it's been fun, friends. We've had some laughs. We've shed some tears. But, you know what they say: "That's great, it starts with an earthquake, birds, snakes an aeroplane and Lenny Bruce is not afraid"

An earthquake? Ah, shit, R.E.M. was right, all along.