Dave Barry's History of the Millennium (So Far) (5 page)

Assassinations. Vietnam. Civil rights. Woodstock. Watergate. Romilar brand cough syrup. These are words that took on new meaning as the era that became known as “the sixties” engulfed the nation in a tidal wave of events that occurred. But finally it was over, and the nation entered an exciting new era, which became known as “the seventies,” during which nothing happened. Then came “the eighties,” which lasted until 1989, when the people of East Berlin, fed up with decades of oppression and deprivation, tore down the Berlin Wall in response to rumors that it contained DoveBars.

This caused the Soviet Union to collapse, leaving the United States as the world's only superpower. And in the nineties, this nation has become even more dominant under the leadership and guidance of President Monica Lewinsky. Today, as we stand on the brink of the year 2000, we are a nation of almost unimaginable wealth. Everywhere we look, we see rich people: millionaire athletes, billionaire dot-com Internet geeks, people on TV quiz shows becoming millionaires by answering questions so easy that they would not stump a reasonably alert stump. And although this makes us want these people to get hit by cement trucks, it also makes us realize that we have come a long way in the past thousand years.

And so this New Year's Eve, when the clock strikes twelve, raise a glass to toast the millions of our ancestors who went before us, paving the way for the safe and secure civilization that we enjoy today. Then, when the clock strikes thirteen and the lights go out, start your generator and load your gun.

L
ooking back on the year 2000, we have to say that, all things considered, it was pretty good.

No, hold it! We just received some late returns in from the 159th manual recounting of the ballots of Palm Beach County, and it turns out that, by a slim margin, it was actually a bad year. So we're glad that it's finally…

Whoops! Hold it! We have just been informed that a Florida court has reversed a ruling overturning an earlier court ruling that upheld a previous ruling that rejected an appeal of a ruling that overturned an earlier reversal of an upheld rejection of the decision to count ballots marked only by drool, which means that the year 2000 was…

OK, to be honest, we're not sure what kind of year it was. We're not sure of ANYTHING anymore, except that we never, ever, ever want to have another presidential election like this one. We think that everybody who had anything to do with this election, including the entire state of Florida, should be banned from the political process for life. We especially think that all the lawyers involved should be marooned on a desert island, surrounded by man-eating sharks, from which the only escape would to be to build a raft out of severely dimpled chads.

But setting aside the Election from Hell, there were some bright spots in the year 2000:

• NASDAQ went deep into the toilet, which meant we heard a LOT fewer stories about twenty-two-year-old dot-com twerps making $450 million for starting companies that never actually produced anything except press releases.
  
• The federal budget surplus got so huge that experts believe it could take Congress as long as eighteen months to blow the entire thing on comically unnecessary pork-barrel projects such as the Museum of Ketchup.
  
• Toward the end of the year, most people finally stopped thinking that it was clever to say “Is that your final answer?” and “Whassup!”
  
• You also heard almost nothing about Dennis Rodman.
  

So, on balance, we're feeling pretty uncertain, in an undecided kind of way, as we take a reflective look back at 2000, which began—as so many years seem to, lately—with…

JANUARY

…which opens with the entire world braced for the impending Y2K disaster, a story that had received more media hype than global warming and Britney Spears combined, with experts warning the public that the electricity could go out, planes could crash, the economy could collapse and renegade ATMs could roam the streets, viciously attacking pedestrians who were unable to remember their PINs.

As it turns out, the only technology that is actually affected by Y2K is the George Foreman Grill, which, at precisely midnight on New Year's Eve, suddenly starts ADDING fat to foods. Other than that, nothing bad happens, and on New Year's Day, all the “experts” admit that they were wrong and refund all the money they received for giving flagrantly incorrect advice. And the Backstreet Boys win the Rose Bowl.

Meanwhile, the dawn of the twenty-first century is celebrated around the world with extravaganzas in all the great cities, most notably Paris, which uses the Eiffel Tower as a framework for the most spectacular light show ever seen; London, which turns the Thames into a mighty river of fire; and Warsaw, which unveils the “Millennium Kielbasa”—a nineteen-hundred-foot-long sausage stuffed with more than fifty thousand pounds of high explosive that, when detonated, causes chunks of smoked meat to rain down festively all over central Europe.

In other foreign news, Vladimir Putin takes over as president of Russia, replacing Boris Yeltsin, who is forced to resign on New Year's Eve when the Kremlin runs out of vodka. In his inaugural speech, Putin, a former KGB agent, pledges to work for international understanding and maintain peaceful relations with the United States “until we can refuel our missiles.”

The United States turns ownership of the Panama Canal over to Panama. Maritime experts quickly became concerned when Panama, seeking to boost revenue by transforming the aging waterway into a Disney-style tourist attraction, installs a “log flume” section. Pieces of disintegrated freighters are soon washing ashore as far away as Costa Rica.

In South America, the War on Drugs, now entering its thirtieth successful year, gets a nice boost when the United States announces that it is giving $1.3 billion more in aid to Colombia, which ducks into the bathroom eight times during the announcement ceremony.

On the domestic political front, Hillary Rodham Clinton makes the extreme personal sacrifice of actually moving into a house located in the state that she has selected to represent in the U.S. Senate. She pledges to “be a good neighbor for the people of whatever the hell this town is.” But the big news is in the Iowa caucuses, from which Al Gore and George W. Bush emerge as winners, despite strong objections from Palm Beach County election officials, who announce that they are not aware of any state named “Iowa.”

President Bill Clinton orders a do-it-yourself “Build-a-Legacy” kit via the Internet.

The big story in Miami is the intensifying legal battle over whether six-year-old Elián González will return to his father in Cuba or be allowed to stay in the United States and enjoy the precious, constitutionally protected freedom to be displayed on network television every time he burps. In another South Florida development, state agriculture inspectors learn that eight lime trees in South Florida have been infected with citrus canker. As National Guard troops and tanks pour into the area, a state official states, “We are not ruling out napalm strikes.”

In financial news, America Online announces the largest merger in history, in which it will acquire Time Warner in exchange for AOL stock valued at $160 billion, or, a little later in the week, $34.

On a sad note, legendary
Mad
cartoonist Don Martin dies, causing a sad hush to fall over the cartooning world, broken only by a gentle sound, coming from somewhere up above:
SPLOINGGG.

In sports, the St. Louis Rams defeat the Tennessee Titans 23 to 16 in the Super Bowl. The Titans graciously concede, although Palm Beach election officials announce that, according to their scoring, Tennessee actually won by 257 points.

And speaking of seesaw battles, in…

FEBRUARY

…the presidential primary campaigns heat up as Al Gore, Bill Bradley, George W. Bush, and John McCain sweep through New Hampshire, then hustle down to South Carolina, then blast out to Wisconsin, then race up to Michigan, then, as a result of a faulty compass, charge deep into Canada, where, before discovering their error, they spend a combined $43 million on TV attack ads and hold several debates, in which Bush repeatedly refers to Canadians as “the Canadish people,” and Gore claims that he was born and raised in Montreal.

Meanwhile, Steve Forbes, who has spent untold millions of his own money in a hopelessly unrealistic quest for the presidency, finally comes to his senses and drops out of the race, declaring that he will now devote his energies full-time to becoming a power forward for the Los Angeles Lakers.

President Clinton, after working late many nights in the White House Situation Room, finally finishes building his legacy. He goes to sleep a happy man, only to discover, on awakening, that Buddy, the First Dog, has gotten hold of the legacy and chewed it beyond recognition.

On the financial front, in a chilling example of the growing menace of cyber crime, unidentified hackers attack several major “e-business” websites, temporarily shutting them down, and thus preventing them from losing money anywhere near as fast as usual. Meanwhile, the Dow Jones Industrial Average continues to slide, dipping below the 10,000 mark for the first time since April of 1999. This causes great concern everywhere except Palm Beach County, where election officials have the Dow pegged at 263,000 and “climbing like a rocket.”

In other Florida stories:

• State agriculture officials score an important victory in the War on Citrus Canker when they manage to kill two of the eight suspected lime trees with a four-hour barrage of artillery fire. Unfortunately, they also—“You can't make an omelet without breaking eggs,” notes one state official—obliterate 237 homes. During the battle, the six other infected lime trees, aided by Greenpeace volunteers, are able to escape, setting off a statewide manhunt.
  
• After decades of complaints about the inhumanity of its execution procedures, Florida switches from using the electric chair to lethal injection. Unfortunately, the first effort does not go well, as prison officials report that they cannot figure out “how to get the electricity into the syringe.”
  
• The official entourage surrounding six-year-old Elián González reaches the three-hundred-person mark, eclipsing the long-standing record held by the Mike Tyson entourage. In their continuing effort to show what a happy, normal life Elián is leading, his media advisers begin scheduling two playing-happily-in-the-yard photo opportunities per day for the throng of international news media personnel, some of whom have been pressed against the fence for so long that they will have chain-link indentations in their foreheads for the rest of their lives.
  

Charles Schulz departs gently and quietly, and a sorrowful world realizes that Charlie Brown will never, ever, kick the football. In sports, Tiger Woods wins the Pebble Beach Pro-Am, the Daewoo Classic, the Liquid Plumber Open, the Extra-Absorbent Depends Tournament of Champions, and the Nebraska State Spelling Bee. And speaking of winning, in…

MARCH

…George W. Bush and Al Gore clinch their parties' nominations, thanks to a heartfelt outpouring of money from civic-minded special interest groups responding to the candidates' calls for campaign finance reform. John McCain and Bill Bradley both drop out, with each man declaring his sincere support for the opponent he has spent the past several months likening to pond scum. Remaining in the presidential race are Ralph Nader, representing the Flush Your Vote Down the Toilet Party, and Pat Buchanan, representing the asteroid belt.

President Clinton visits the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library, and, upon exiting, sets off an alarm. Guards discover a piece of FDR's legacy in one of the president's pockets. Nobody can figure out how the heck it got there.

In economic news, consumers voice increasing concern over rising gasoline prices, which have climbed to record levels in almost every part of the nation except Palm Beach County, where election officials report that unleaded premium is selling for 14 cents a gallon.

In science, medical researchers announce that they have cloned a $100 bill, and will no longer be dependent upon federal grants.

True item: In the War on Smoking, several states take legal steps to protect major tobacco companies from an anticipated huge damage award in a class action lawsuit. The states need the tobacco companies to stay in business, because, thanks to the tobacco settlement, the states now make more money from the sale of cigarettes than the tobacco companies do. If this makes no sense to you, it's because you're a human, as opposed to a lawyer.

In other product liability news, Smith & Wesson announces that henceforth its handguns will be manufactured so that, when the trigger is pulled, a little stick pops out of the barrel with a flag that says
Bang!
The Clinton administration announces that it will oppose this plan on the grounds that the stick “could poke out an eye.”

On Wall Street, the Dow plunges, then soars, then evens out for a little while, then—in a move that alarms many observers—briefly switches to degrees Fahrenheit.

In New York City, Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, angered by charges that the city's police are overzealous, defends the department in a press conference that ends abruptly when a
Daily News
reporter raises his hand and is shot 467 times. A review board later rules that the shooting was justified on the grounds that “there was no way to tell that the finger was not loaded.”

Another true item: In a stunning journalism coup, ABC News reporter Diane Sawyer stands on her head AND gets squirted with Silly String by international superstar celebrity news object Elián González. Through these and other professional investigative reporting techniques, Sawyer is able to show, in a heavily promoted exclusive interview, that the six-year-old boy is, in fact, a six-year-old boy.

Elsewhere in Florida:

• The War on Citrus Canker escalates as state agriculture authorities fire more than twenty-three thousand rounds in a shopping mall shoot-out against a gang of renegade orange trees, resulting in numerous civilian casualties. Unfortunately, all the trees manage to get away, but authorities confidently report that one of them “lost a lot of sap.”
  
• Scandal-plagued Miami International Airport suffers yet another setback when inspectors discover that the new air traffic control tower, which has been under construction for two years, is actually a tree fort. “And not a particularly well-built tree fort, either,” the inspectors add.
  
• Dan Marino retires, causing hundreds of sports-talk-radio callers to stop complaining that he stinks and start complaining that the Dolphins are going to really stink without him.