Signs Of The Apocalypse

I don’t know if I’m just becoming a misanthrope, but lately I’ve been seeing more and more indicators that we are in deep, deep trouble in this country. Since we’re on the road to hell, I figured I’d share.

I mean, the more the merrier. Even on the way to hell.

So this will be a recurring feature in our blog: Signs Of The Apocalypse.

Two things have come up recently that will serve as this first installment.

The first one: several times in the past few months I’ve had this exchange, or something eerily similar to it, with various clerks/operators/general service industry reps. This is the conversation I had with the pharmacist yesterday as I tried to pick up a prescription for Amy’s strep throat.

Pharmacist: “Last name?”

David: “O’Donnell.”

P: “Hyphenated?”

D: “I’m sorry?”

P: “Is it hyphenated?”

D: “My name?”

P: “Yes.”

D: (blank stare)

P: “Does it have, like, a hyphen, like one of those things, those little quote marks?”

D: “Ah, apostrophe. Yes. O apostrophe D O N N E L L.”

P: “Thank you.”

D: (mumbling) “Madre mia...”

This is the pharmacist. Who hands out drugs to people every day. Hyphenated. I mean, what if the young George Bailey weren’t working there that day to see that the poison had been mixed in…

Sign of the apocalypse.

The second one: Pat Robertson, that twisted lunatic multimillionaire who poses as a man of the cloth, recently announced that, since Landmark Communications is selling The Virginian-Pilot (the main paper here in the Hampton Roads area), he’s considering buying it.

Great. The man already controls the minds of far too many people in this area, and now he might control the paper? I mean this is the guy who said feminism makes women kill their kids and become lesbians, who called for the assassination of Hugo Chavez, who chimed in with Falwell that 9/11 was caused by gays and abortionists, who said he himself prayed away a hurricane, who used his non-profit as a cover for a massive diamond trade out of Liberia, who… well, I could go on, but I won’t.

The thing is, he makes all these claims from his plush offices just a few miles from where we live, and he has a lot of influence around here, and he freaks me the hell out. And if he buys the paper: sign of the apocalypse.

(For those keeping score, The Virginian-Pilot is indeed hyphenated.)