Big Al at work….
I know, it’s December already. Once again you have pleaded, begged, appealed, coaxed, inveigled and even cajoled for my predictions for the coming year. (By the way, there is a support group for addictive cajoling). I, in my magnanimity, have answered the call. So here, for your edification and pleasure are my annual prognostications of the major events for the coming year. And good riddance to 2020!
January – Joe Biden, still thinking he had just won back his old Senate seat, mistakenly goes to the Senate chamber for the Presidential inauguration ceremony. Guest artist Barbara Streisand keeps the impatient crowd at bay with a rendition of her great hit, ”Memory”, while he finds his way over to the Capitol steps.
February – The Hollywood crowd, elated about the election and that they will not have to move to Canada after all, holds a city-wide garage sale to sell off all their prematurely purchased cross-country skis and snowshoes.
March – Still smarting over the gads of money lost from cancellation of March Madness last year due to Covid-19, the NCAA basketball committee declares that his year’s tournament will include every single college team in a triple elimination tournament. For health and safety of the players, all teams will be housed and all games will be played in a “bubble”, a specially constructed giant igloo in Barrow, Alaska, affectionately nicknamed the “Pregnant Eskimo.”
April – In a surprise move, President Biden, finishes up his choices for key administration posts with the appointment of Senator Elizabeth Warren as Commissioner of Indian Affairs. When told she was expected to come up with a plan for reparations for past injustices done to her ancestors, she simply asks….. how?
May – Never one to miss an opportunity to stay in the limelight, former President Trump, realizing that both the USA and Russia will be holding Presidential elections in 2024, uses Conan O’Briens’ late night show to announce his candidacy for both. The two countries immediately accuse each other of plotting to interfere in the other’s election.
June – With the Covid-19 vaccines a smashing success and the nation back to normal, Dr. Anthony Fauci faces likely lay-off as Director of the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases. However, based on an anonymous tip, he is arrested after the FBI films him late one night unloading a shipment of millions of African Tsetse flies from the trunk of his SUV.
July – NCAA basketball “March Madness” finally concludes with an upset for the ages. After five months of playoffs, the far less-heralded Cinderella team, Point Barrow Community College, beats the storied Duke University Blue Devils for the title. The “Runnin’ Utqiaġviks” use the fact that they are well acclimated to living inside the Arctic Circle to their advantage while the Blue Devils run out of steam when the delicate alveolar in their lungs start to ice over.
August – The previously cancelled Olympics from 2020 finally get underway in Tokyo. Several new events held for the first time include boxing with six-foot gloves, no-touch wrestling, flag water polo and the one contest in which the U.S is the heavy favorite, last-minute event cancelling due to virus concerns.
September – A glut swamps the marketplace as millions of little old ladies convert unused virus masks into stunningly beautiful homemade quilts. Surprising no one, quilting bees replace Canasta as the go-to pastime for the over 65 group.
October – President Biden sends Congress a bill doing away with the traditional one-hour time changes in the fall and spring. Millions of Americans express their relief until even worse confusion later results. In an effort to appease his close friends in China, he changes America over to the traditional Chinese calendar. Accordingly, the year 2022 will not begin until February 12th and will be know as “The Year of the Yak.”
November – Looking forward to finally having a normal Thanksgiving again, families in California are astounded when Governor Newsom once again puts a limit on the number of family members, citing a sudden and unusual rise in the number of cases of African Sleeping Sickness.
December – “Batman, The Twilight Years” the twelfth sequel in the series, debuts at local theaters for the lucrative Christmas movie season. Batman has turned in his cape and Batmobile for a shawl and a walker as he shuffles along to ferret out an evil-doer who has terrorized fellow occupants of his assisted-living facility by stealing and forging their social security checks. In an effort to save on costs for make-up, the producers offer the lead to 94-year-old Dick Van Dyck. Oddly, his ubiquitous sidekick, Robin, the person responsible for having him forcibly admitted to the facility, does not appear in this episode.
