All day long on Rapture day my siblings exchanged text messages. My other brother wrote, “No sense buying green bananas” and “I’m not flossing today.” And when my sister did her grocery shopping, she texted, “Everything I bought today is a lifetime supply.” I also called my mom to borrow money, telling her I’d pay her back on Monday. She totally fell for it. After the clock ticked down to THE END, I had an automatic message go out to anyone who texted me – “The person you tried to reach has ascended. Try again later.”
My husband and I celebrated our last day by watching the movie “2012” with John Cusack—no less—and ordered our first pizza in months. We ate dessert first and ran with scissors to work up an appetite, capping off our excitement with an exploding world tsunami flick. I thought the movie would blow, but the special effects kept us overlooking the fact that it was a John Cusack movie. After the film ended, I texted my family, saying, “We’re celebrating Christmas. Happy New Year!”
In hindsight, if I had actually believed the end of the world would come on a damned weekend—Why not on Monday, for crying out loud?—I might have spent the time better. I blame John Cusack for this. I’m jaded. Cynical. Maybe I should have taken it more seriously and taken stock in all the things I have to be thankful for, but I didn’t want to crowd Thanksgiving. That day, turkey rules.
So tell us. How did you spend Rapture Day? What cracked you up? What made you think? What did you actually do as the clock ticked down? Or did you even KNOW about it? (Yeah, some of my friends didn’t buy a vowel or get a clue. [Insert eye roll here.])
Since there were no news reports of spontaneously disappearing people we decided the zombies might not come either. (All that head shot practice gone to waste)So the wifeoid an I decided to watch zombie movies instead.
Wrong with a capital W. Couldn’t find any zombie flicks in the stash, so we watched one of my favorite inspirational movies, Kill Bill.
OMG John, how funny. (Head shots–you crack me up.) When Zombieland (with Woody Harrelson) came ON DEMAND, I invited my younger brother and his wife over to watch it. He was the only one I knew who would watch it with me. Before he drove over, he called to ask if I’d invited Mom & Dad, like that was actually…normal. He picked them up on his way.
Big mistake. Huge. (But secretly, very funny.)
I can honestly say that I was with a group at church praying at that time. But only because that’s when our Sunday School class had scheduled a fish fry. I hardly think it jaded or cynical to think the world wouldn’t end on that day. Anyone who has read the Bible knows God didn’t record the date of the rapture in there. I feel sorry for those people who didn’t know better than to listen to Harold Camping, but he made it too easy. We had to make jokes about it. And now it looks like we get to do it again in October.
Hi Timothy–
The daughter of a friend searched the Bible for something on the rapture and found nothing that supported Camping’s claim, as you said. Sad that people gave money to that nut job too. And he’s got a pair of brass ones to move his date to October. Joy.
I spent the day praying that the rapture would come and take Beck, Limbaugh and Hannity away. Sadly, no such luck.
There’s still October, Joe.
@joe moore
Along with Ed Shultz, Rachel Maddow and Chris Matthews.
I spent the day doing yard work — not that I didn’t believe mind you.
Yard work? You REALLY didn’t believe. Not even a little.
Jordan-
Zombieland is what we were looking for in the movie stash (it’s a classic in our eyes), but sadly we couldn’t find it or Sean of the Dead(another classic), so it was Kill Bill vol. 1 instead.
Bill Murray is my favorite part of Zombieland, John. And who better to star in a movie about whacking Zombies than Woody. Classic, indeed, although my parents were totally confused by the whole undead thing.
Another night my husband recorded Night of the Living Dead. It was really bad. The acting and writing were awful, but you talk about noir–wow. Bleak ending. And when the dead little girl kills her mom, that was definitely disturbing, even in B&W.
I saw a newly released book in the latest Publishers Weekly called My Life as a White Trash Zombie. The cover is hilarious and it got a good review. You might want to add to your undead collection.
My wife and I spent the end of the world on the 13th floor of the Raleigh, NC Sheraton.
While awaiting Apocalypse Deferred, I wrote some good descriptions of the WordPress geeks occupying the convention center.
Nice, Old Rebel. Go down writing. I like it.
I think the dangers of the end of time prophesies is that zealots who have nukes may think it is their duty to make the prophesies come about.
As for 2012 I kept rooting for John Cusak to die so the movie would end. He never did and the movie went on forever.
I went around all day naked on Rapture day just in case. Worst case, if I didn’t go into the sky, I’d be able to find a set of clothes to put on.
I was hoping you’d show up, Miller. Guess I have to admit I wanted the earth to win and swallow everyone, especially the dog. It was too depressing to imagine a bunch of old farts with money claimed a seat on the big arks for money. Not a very realistic way to populate the planet.
And what was up with the two-and-two animal thing. If they charged money for a seat to survive the apocalypse, why give it to an elephant. Everyone knows they work for peanuts.
And with the whole world destroyed, what good would money do anyway? That really cracked me up. Ah, Hollywood.
Naked on Rapture Day? Guess you have another try in October to come up with a better plan. Just sayin.’
I had totally forgotten it was supposed to be happening so I just had a normal day:) …well as normal as I get.
I think having a normal day–that doesn’t involve walking around naked, waiting for the sky to swallow you and give your behavior a reason–is probably a blessing, Clare. I’d be good with that.
I imagine there are a lot of people in Joplin, Missouri who figure Camping was just off one day. Have you seen the pictures from the tornado there?
Devastating, Dave. Your comment is very true. My husband and I had just moved to OK when we got our first taste of what a tornado can do. One was a mile wide and 50 touched down during the night. People died and the destruction was horribly scary. We witnessed the aftermath firsthand when emergency crews were done. We’ll never forget missing that bullet, so our hearts go out to those poor souls in Joplin.
Don’t watch the tube or take a regular paper – live on an island in the Caribbean. On Sunday when we did pick up a paper and saw the headline that the world did not end; I thought – Finally, some good news!
I worked furiously to meet my deadline for Monday . . . because darn it all, Rapture or not, I’m a professional! LOL!!
Another Day—OMG that is too funny. And yeah, you were right. A red letter day.
And Kathleen–Man, I thought I was obsessive. LOL I actually took the day off, which I rarely do, but the rebel in me felt like taking a snow day in the middle of summer. You crack me up.