I was at my mom’s house yesterday when I noticed that she still has a stack of encyclopedias on her bookshelf.
They are the encyclopedias my grandmother tried to get rid of after concluding that they were too old; at which point, my mother took them, thinking they would be useful for my brothers and sister and me to do our school work with. To recap: They were too old for my grandmother, so my mother took them for her children to learn from.
They are from 1963.
Nearly every bad grade I got in elementary school–in 1994, a relatively bad year for internet research, but an even worse year for encyclopedia’s printed in 1963–suddenly made sense.
I spent some time flipping through “A”. Here’s what I can tell you: I am more confused about the 1960s than ever, but I have learned a few things.
Which to me looked more like…
The Financial Times and other news outlets are reporting that the 7 billionth person will be born at the end of October. And save for a few discussions about overcrowding and the continuing swell of humankind, everyone seems pretty cool with this idea. And maybe I would be, too, except for this:
The 7 billionth person is scheduled to arrive on Halloween. HALLO-FUCKING-WEEN, PEOPLE!
Based on every Wes Craven/Michael Myers/Omen/”The Call is Coming from Inside the House”/”She’s been dead for 15 years” campfire story, Stephen King novel, urban legend and major-motion-slasher picture out there, such a monumental event occurring on such a stab-happy holiday is terrifying news, and I’m a little concerned that no one else has expressed even the slightest bit of interest in our 7 billionth neighbor’s spooky birthday.
I mean. Considering it will be born on Halloween, we can’t even assume this thing’s going to be fully human.
What if this is what comes out?
Or this?
Need a closer look?
For a community that’s so concerned with the arrival of zombies, I feel like we’ve taken our eyes off of a much more real and almost-fucking-here problem.
And let’s not waste our time worrying about overcrowding. This 7 billionth monster baby might dramatically reduce our population by laying waste to everything in its path. WITH ITS MIND.
As for the website asking “What would you like the 7 billionth person to know?” and welcoming the might-be demon to the world, you know what I want this baby to know? I’m trained in krav maga, and I sleep with a knife under my pillow. What I don’t want it to know? My home address.
In your lifetime, you will visit many parks, including…
Community parks
National parks
Theme parks
All of the parks you visit will be made of equal parts entertainment and nostalgia…with one egregious exception.
Office parks
Naming a collection of office buildings an “office park” is thoughtless at best and at worst, the most vicious bait and switch ever.
There is no merriment to be had at an office park; there is only the making of the business plans and the eating of the microwave meals and the passive-aggressive coworkers and the aggressive-aggressive halogen lighting.
All text and images by this is not that blog are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at www.thisisnotthatbog.com.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be requested by e-mailing notthatkendall@gmail.com.