In The Future

After a bizarre accident in 1997, involving electro-shock therapy, 14 grams of psilocybin mushrooms, and an outlaw gang of renegade Scientologists (it's a long and rather dull story), your Captain was left endowed with the mystical gift/curse of divination. Kind of like that guy in The Dead Zone. Or Carnac the Magnificent. That sort of thing.

Please don't get excited. This is not a push-button type of ability; I cannot predict future events on demand. I do not know what the winning lottery numbers will be, I have no idea who will win the Super Bowl, and I can't tell you whether or not your husband is cheating on you with that blond bimbo who works in his office (although he probably is), so please don't ask.

From time to time, however, certain random future events are revealed to me in the form of “visions”. Every so often I will suddenly and involuntarily go into a trance-like state, put a wig on my head, stuff a carrot up my ass, and say the Ten Commandments backwards while spinning on my back, break-dance style.

Fortunately, I am always spared any memory of this behavior. After I come out of one of these trances, all I can ever remember is being in a small room with the walls painted black. A man who appears to be a very short and very angry version of Ed Sullivan will walk out, stamp my foot a couple of times, and then turn on a small black & white TV. Several future events are then displayed in succession, interspersed with various commercials for denture cream and adult diapers. Often these future events are narrated by the character “Potsy” from Happy Days.

To keep this knowledge to myself would be a burden. I feel that, as your humble servant, it is my duty to share these glimpses of what's-to-come, in the hopes that it will help you to better prepare yourself. So now, for your edification and contemplation, I present to you...

The Future!

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The Electro-W 9000
George W. Bush will amaze everyone when he completely stops mispronouncing words. Over the next few months the public will grow more and more suspicious, until it is finally revealed that the President has actually been replaced by a sophisticated animatronic robot, the “Electro-W 9000”.

The real George Bush, it will turn out, had just been vacationing in Texas the previous six months. When he is interviewed about this, he will mispronounce 16 different words, including the word "mispronounce". His approval rating will plummet to a record .6%, while the robot's approval rating will jump to 78% overnight.

Why can't we all just get along?
All over the world racism will suddenly end for no apparent reason. Whites will stop discriminating against Blacks, Palestinians will stop hating Jews, and Puerto Ricans will no longer make fun of the way Caucasians dance. Unfortunately, no one will notice this dramatic change because it will only last for 1.7 seconds.

O-binni's in da Hayouse
Osama bin Laden will shave off his beard, braid his hair, and put out a new Death-to-America tape. The tape will go to the top of the charts in Baghdad and Afghanistan, and the kids will start calling him "O-binni". All of the major TV news outlets will talk continuously about O-binni for the next 3 weeks - not his terrorist activities, but his new, hip look.

“High” School
A new study by Eli Lilly and Co. will show that 98% of all Americans now suffer from clinical depression, and new legislation will be passed making Prozac mandatory for all high school students. As a result, marijuana usage among high school students will decrease dramatically overnight, which will be seen as a major victory in the war on drugs.

Thick Shady
Eminem will quit the music business altogether and start competing in the World Body Building Association's Mr. America Contest. He will change his name to “The Artist Formerly Known As Eminem, Slim Shady And/Or Marshall Mathers”. He will then divorce and remarry Kim Mathers 6 more times.

Pig-eyed Sack of Shit
Radio talk-show personality Rush Limbaugh will be arrested and charged with possession of 6 pounds of pure heroin. As punishment, he will be sentenced to 8 months of rehab at a luxury facility.

Little Green Men
Five large UFOs will land on the White House lawn, and for the next three days extraterrestrials will give in-depth interviews to all the major news networks, sparking a national debate over the possible existence of UFOs.

Is this a rerun?
Michael Jackson will once again be accused of molesting young boys. Instead of covering the new trial, however, CNN will save money by simply showing old clips from previous trials.

The Agony of Victory
The company Diebold will install new "Dial-A-Vote" phone-in voting systems in all 50 states, and in the 2008 elections the Republican party will not only win the Presidential race, but every single seat in Congress as well. Soon after, the national deficit will quickly rise to 839 trillion dollars, which will somehow be Bill Clinton's fault.

And Finally...
There will be many corporate mergers in the future: Coca-cola will buy out Pepsi, who will then buy out Taco Bell, who will buy out NBC, who will buy out Wal-Mart. Then the pharmaceutical companies will buy out all the tobacco companies, the fast food companies will buy out the fitness companies, and the chemical companies will buy out all of the farming and agricultural companies.

Then Exxon, in a bold move, will buy out every single company on the planet and form a new corporate conglomerate called “You Are Happy Now Go Back To Sleep Inc.”

They will air commercials disguised as sitcoms and reality shows, which will run 24 hours a day on every channel (which they will now own). No one will complain, however, because it won't seem any different than it was before.