From the Slow Lane: Oh, you mean that end is near!

There’s a guy who’s been standing on a street in Key West this past week with a sign that proclaims: “Warning! The End Is Near!!!!!!!”

When I saw him and his sign I thought, “Here we go again.” You see, I’ve been through this whole end-of-the-world thing already. Twice, actually, back in 1994.

I didn’t see a man with a sign that time but heard about the end of the world on the radio after someone on the Jerry Springer program announced that the end was near.

That’s not something I’d normally pay attention to, except that I was on my way to buy a 10-trip book of ferry tickets. A book of tickets gets me through six months, but according to the guy on Jerry Springer, the world was supposed to end that very day and I decided that if I was going out I didn’t want to do it clutching a book of unused ferry tickets.

Instead I spent my ferry money on a lobster roll lunch and blond (but subtle) highlights. That way, if it was really “the end” at least I’d go with a full stomach and good hair.

As it turned out, the world did not end on that particular day. However, the end-of-the-world prognosticator had prepared for such a non-event and scheduled an end-of-the-world rain date, which was September 15, 1994. The world didn’t end that day, either.

I guess the new — or at least most popular -— end-of-the-world date is in December next year, though I remain a tad skeptical. But don’t go by me. I’m the person who said “Hey, the IRS doesn’t audit little people like us,” and “Yes, I can see that police car, but I’m sure he’s after someone else,” and, “No, it’s not bad. That’s the way raw chicken is supposed to smell.” For the record, I am more often wrong than right.

Several of us were sitting around the RV park talking about the guy and his sign and the people who think the world will end in 2012 and whether we would change the way we live during our remaining days.

I know I would. No more shouts of “fill “er up!” I’d buy my gasoline a gallon at a time. And no more big-box shopping either. What’s the point of lugging home garbage-pail size bottles of Stress-Tabs or five-gallon jars of green olives — enough to last nearly forever – if forever is suddenly redefined as “any minute now”?

The changes my friends would make were loftier than mine. One woman said she would become a nicer person; that she’d compile a list of all the people she had ever wronged, insulted or hurt and would call those people to beg their forgiveness.

I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have time to contact all the people on my list, but I suppose I could put a sign on my car that says “I didn’t mean it!” then drive back and forth cross-country until the end happened.

One of my neat-freak RV friends said that she would let the dishes pile up in the sink and ignore dust balls and the unmade bed so she could spend her precious remaining time doing things she enjoyed. I chimed in with “me too,” which was met with hysterical laughter and a few snickers because some of these people have seen the inside of my RV.

Even if I believed the world was near “the end,” aside from maybe trying, one last time, to eat a raw clam, there’s not too much that I’d do differently than I do now. I’ve always thought that putting too many things off for later isn’t a good idea. Face it, even if the world doesn’t end next week, or next year, sooner or later, each one of us is going to run out of “later.”

And that’s just what I said to my Key West RV neighbor after she said, “Oh dear, I guess the end is near.” She stared at me hard for a minute and asked, “What the heck are you going on about? I’m talking about the end of our stay here, we’re going home tomorrow.”

Oh, yeah, that too.