| I
have been waiting for the Muse of Essay Writing to visit but, it seems,
she too, has been nursing a Titanic, New Year’s Eve hangover and forgot to invigorate
me. So, in keeping with tradition for this time of year what follows are some
predictions for the now not so new year. Some are puerile, wishful dreaming, others
are sure to occur, just wait and see. Primarily,
sometime around mid-April, early May there will be tens of thousands of frantic,
panicked phone calls to suburban police stations all across the country. The calls
will be placed by parents reporting their children missing. After the awkward,
embarrassing revelations that they, the parents, do not recall when they last
saw their children, it will be discovered that many of them, the children, are
congregated at the Starbucks texting the other children who will be, conveniently,
at another Starbucks across the street.
The second prediction is somewhat
predicated on the first: Finally understanding the futility of the space, homebuilders
will begin to construct homes without dining rooms. In their stead, the areas
will be filled with a thin succession of stalls with individual electrical and
cable outlets. Each will be fronted by folding doors for privacy, much like the
old-style telephone booths. The only difference being the slot in the door through
which a TV dinner can easily enter. The next administration will hail the development
as a “testament to good-old, rugged, American individualism.”
Next (and
I believe we have all seen this coming) every town or city along the I-35 corridor
will be renamed to include the term “strip mall” in the moniker. For example:
StripMallburg. You get the idea.
Sometime during the summer the ban on
cigarette smoking in public places will be lifted after everyone realizes that
quitting smoking is “really hard.”
Again in the summer months, Texas Tech
University will reinstate Mike Leach as the head coach for the football team after
it is found that disciplining recalcitrant, abusive students does not violate
school policy.
On a similar note, after months of trying to decide what
to do with the detainees at Guantanamo Prison, President Obama will decree that
those remaining, after their trials, will be assigned to teach at middle schools
all across the country. Noting the continually chaotic environment inherent in
junior high schools, the president will declare that, once the detainees are in
place, “Someone’s gonna’ learn their lesson!”
After another year of condominium
construction in Austin, developers will
petition and be granted license for construction of a second tier to the entire
downtown area. Developers and the city council will try to mollify resident’s
concerns by reminding them that, when construction is completed, sometime around
2075, the structure will offer a, “really cool balcony” with a view of the new
housing development on top of Lake Travis.
JAMA, the Journal of the American
Medical Association, will, in an effort to curb the rising obesity problem, introduce
the “Demosthenes Diet”. The technique will involve filling the mouth with rocks
before meals. Maxillofacial surgeons will hail the technique as “Brilliant!”
The
Stanford-Binet IQ scale, which lists an “Average” IQ at a range of 91-110, will,
after documenting an overall decline in scores, lower the number for the “average”
range to somewhere between 80-100. Those persons, who previously had been labeled
at the stage just under average, the “Dull Normal” category, will hire a writer,
whose own IQ falls into the new “Average” category, who will publish a treatise
for the group. The title of the essay will be “See, We Told You So!” After publication,
many of this group will apply, again, for admittance to their local community
colleges.
Following suit with the new IQ standards, the state of Texas
will announce that, in an effort to combat falling scores on the TEKS exams, those
series of standardized tests meant to quantify grade completion, the state will
offer a “Counter-Balance” pamphlet as an aid to the test’s successful completion.
This document will be, in fact, the answers to the test for every grade and subject
level. After a single year of near perfect test scores the measure will be lauded
as, “The most meaningful and important advancement in the field of pedagogy since
the Brown v. Board of Education case of 1954.” Maybe not surprisingly, scores
will begin to again fall beginning in 2012.
These predictions are, as
a way of disclaimer, not meant to reflect any reality, imagined or otherwise.
No group or individuals listed here are, in any way, meant to be actual or real.
Likewise, the predictions are also just as ridiculous as they appear. On the other
hand, if any of them come true, just remember, you heard it here first.
©
Byron Browne
Notes From Over Here
January 11,
2010 Column
Byron Browne can be reached at Byron.Browne@gmail.com
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