Dave Barry's History of the Millennium (So Far) (10 page)

Robert Torricelli announces that he is dropping out of the New Jersey Senate race because he is a good man who has done nothing wrong. The state Democratic Party, looking for a “name” to replace him on the ballot, decides, in a move of questionable legality, to go with “John F. Kennedy.”

U.S. news organizations observe the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks with investigative reports about the nation's continued vulnerability to terrorism. First, the New York
Daily News
reports that two of its reporters carried box cutters, razor knives, and pepper spray on fourteen commercial flights without getting caught. Then ABC News reports that it smuggled fifteen pounds of uranium into New York City. Then Fox News reports that it flew Osama bin Laden to Washington, D.C., and videotaped him touring the White House. The nation's Color Code Security Status is ratcheted up to its third-highest level, Burnt Umber (“Medium Rare”).

On the medical front, an outbreak of the deadly West Nile virus prompts six states to enact strict laws requiring the registration of mosquitoes. It does not go unnoticed by the Bush administration that the West Nile is probably in the same general area as…Iraq.

In entertainment news, the coveted Emmy for best TV drama goes to the new hit show,
Mall Parking Lot Surveillance Video of Woman Belting Her Child,
which is running on all major networks twenty-four hours a day to guard against the danger that somebody, somewhere, might have missed it. The grand prize in the phenomenally popular talent-search show
American Idol
is won by perky female singer Kelly Clarkson, played, in the performance of his career, by David Hasselhoff.

In financial news, agents of the Securities and Exchange Commission stage a predawn attack on the Martha Stewart cabin only to discover that the domestic diva has escaped through a six-hundred-yard tunnel, which she apparently dug by hand using a heart-shaped dessert scoop (stainless steel, dishwasher safe, $38 at marthastewart.com). The stock market falls to minus infinity, its lowest level in nearly two weeks.

But the bad news only gets worse in…

OCTOBER

…when the Washington, D.C., area is terrorized by a string of deadly sniper attacks. After weeks of escalating fear and tension, police are finally able to break the case by identifying, then arresting, the only two males in the United States who have not appeared on CNN or Fox as sniper experts.

Speaking of terror: Saddam Hussein, having campaigned under the catchy populist slogan “A Vote for Saddam Is a Vote for Not Getting Both Your Feet Chopped Off Without Anesthetic,” is reelected with a solid 127 percent of the popular vote, which includes several thousand votes apparently cast via Internet from Broward and Miami-Dade Counties.

Another closely watched election is held in Brazil, where the voters—in a move sure to inspire confidence in the international financial community—elect, as their new president, a man named “Lula.” The economic news is not so good in the United States, where the New York Stock Exchange, in what is seen by many analysts as a troubling sign, announces that it will henceforth be operating out of a pushcart in Battery Park.

But the scariest news comes from North Korea, which announces that, in violation of a 1994 agreement with the United States, it is developing nuclear weapons. An angry President Bush responds by pointing out that “if you spell
KOREA
backward, you get
AEROK,
which sounds a heck of a lot like…Iraq.” Reacting quickly, the Department of Homeland Insecurity produces, in mere hours, a new Color Code Security Status: Tangerine (“UH-oh!”).

In politics, a tragic plane crash claims the life of Sen. Paul Wellstone of Minnesota, whose loss is mourned at a memorial service featuring rousing eulogies and music by Limp Bizkit. The state's Democratic Party, looking for a replacement with name recognition, taps Walter Mondale, who, after some prompting, is indeed able to recognize his name. In a speech accepting the nomination, Mondale confidently predicts that he will “send Mr. Reagan back to California.”

In the feel-good sports story of the year, the plucky and spunky Anaheim Angels, in what almost seems like a scripted outcome, defeat the San Francisco Barry Bonds in a nail-biter of a World Series that captivates millions of viewers, including several dozen living outside of California.

And speaking of contests, in…

NOVEMBER

…the Republicans win big in the midterm elections, giving President Bush a clear mandate to push forward with his foreign and domestic agendas, as soon as he thinks a domestic agenda up. In a somber postelection speech, the president reaffirms his solemn commitment, no matter how long it takes, to learn to pronounce “nuclear.” The Democrats, desperate for leadership and beginning to realize that Walter Mondale is not the answer, begin making discreet inquiries into the availability of Hubert Humphrey. In Florida, the computerized voting goes surprisingly smoothly, with election officials reporting no major “glitches,” and a strong turnout of eighty-seven trillion voters.

Al Gore emerges from his Resting Pod to let everyone know that he is not at ALL bitter about the fact that he was TOTALLY ripped off in 2000 and really should be the president, and is WAY smarter than George W., not to mention that Tipper is WAY more of a babe than Laura. The former vice president declares that he has not decided whether he will run for president again; he mulls this difficult question over in a series of heartfelt self-probing appearances on
Meet the Press, Larry King Live, The Today Show, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Late Night with David Letterman, Monday Night Football, Emeril Live, The Simpsons,
and
The Victoria's Secret Fashion Show,
where Gore expresses his belief that the dominant issue of the twenty-first century will be biodegradable underwear.

World tension eases when Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, under intense international pressure, announces that he will allow UN weapons inspectors “full access to Ahvaz, Hamedan, Mashad, Rasht, Urmiya, and Zahedan.” World tension increases again when the UN inspectors, having visited these sites, report that they are located in Iran.

Elsewhere in the War on Terrorism, Osama bin Laden, apparently concerned that he has been overshadowed in recent months by other world personalities, releases a new audiotape in which he states that he is “available for meetings, parties, weddings, and corporate functions.” In Yemen, a vehicle carrying a top al-Qaeda leader is vaporized by a Hellfire missile fired by an unmanned U.S. drone plane. Many Americans ask the obvious question: If we have this technology, why haven't we used it on…Geraldo?

In entertainment news, nearly thirty million viewers tune in to watch the finale of
The Bachelor,
in which banker Aaron Buerge chooses, as his bride-to-be, psychologist Helene Eksterowicz, much to the dismay of the popular favorite runner-up, David Hasselhoff. Michael Jackson takes time out from his busy schedule of being an oppressed humanitarian to demonstrate the correct method for displaying an infant to a crowd from a fifth-floor balcony. Actress Winona Ryder is convicted of shoplifting, surprising CNN and Fox shoplifting experts who had been predicting for weeks that she would be a white male loner.

In an ominous development, SEC agents confirm reports that Martha Stewart recently contracted with a leading New York architectural firm to design her a cave. The Color Code Security is quickly bumped up to Jalapeño (“Everyone DOWN!”).

Speaking of scary situations, in…

DECEMBER

…hopes for peace soar when Saddam Hussein, as ordered by the UN, finally turns over a list of materials that could be used to make weapons of mass destruction. These hopes are dashed when UN inspectors begin translating the list from Arabic and find that the first item is “a partridge in a pear tree.”

Not to be outshone on the international stage, Osama bin Laden issues a press release stating that he is involved in “serious negotiations” with a “major studio” for “an important role in
Jackass 2.
”

On the economic front, a group of troubled U.S. airlines, faced with overwhelming losses, announces that in an effort to cut fuel costs their pilots will periodically turn off the engines during flight and coast for what an airline spokesperson describes as “a reasonable distance.” The spokesperson stresses that this procedure “is perfectly safe” and will be used “only over soft terrain.”

In another troubling story, a new medical study shows that Americans are not only fat but they are also starting to give off what researchers describe as “a really bad smell.”

In a surprise political development, Al Gore, having apparently received a status report from Earth, announces that he will not run for president in 2004. Within hours, the Democratic Party leadership, reacting to this devastating news, runs out of champagne. On the Republican side, Sen. Trent Lott gets himself into hot water when the news media report that (1) he suggested Strom Thurmond would be a good president, and (2) his DNA is virtually identical to that of a mackerel.

Congress, in a widely hailed and long-overdue effort to control the worsening celebrity glut, passes a law requiring that when a TV show such as
American Idol
creates a star, at least one existing star must be deported. Within hours, the Backstreet Boys are on an Air Force transport bound for Uzbekistan.

But the news is not so good from a remote, forbidding mountain region near Westport, Conn., where SEC agents prepare to attack a centrally heated, 24,500-square-foot, Country French–style cave containing Martha Stewart only to discover that their worst-case nightmare scenario has become a reality: The fugitive taste goddess has gotten hold of a nuclear food processor. “If she presses the
POWER
button,” states one official, “New England is radioactive coleslaw.” In response, the Color Code Security Status is ratcheted up to its highest level, Traffic Cone Orange (“Yikes!”).

And thus the year ends on a somewhat disturbing note. But this does not prevent the nation from pausing, on the eve of 2003, to gather with friends, to drink champagne, to blow into cardboard horns, to sing “Auld Lang Syne,” to reflect on the year gone past, and, above all, to realize, a little too late, that those cardboard horns are manufactured abroad and would make a perfect vehicle for spreading chemical or biological warfare agents.

But Happy New Year, anyway.

I
t was the Year of the Troubling Question.

The most troubling one was: What the heck happened to all those weapons of mass destruction that were supposed to be in Iraq? Apparently, there was an intelligence mix-up. As CIA director George Tenet noted recently, “Our thinking now is that the weapons of mass destruction might actually be in that other one, whaddycallit, Iran. Or Michigan. We're pretty sure the letter
i
is involved.”

Some other troubling questions from 2003 were:

• If Californians hated Gray Davis so much, why did they elect him governor TWICE? Did Gray have photos of the entire California electorate naked? Can we see them?
  
• Why did Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck—whose sole achievement in 2003 was to costar in
  Gigli,
  a film so bad it was used to torture suspected terrorists—receive more media attention than the entire continent of Asia, and nearly as much as Kobe Bryant?
  
• Who's watching all these “reality” TV shows? Nobody admits to watching them. Everybody agrees they're even stupider than those infomercials wherein Ron Popeil spends thirty minutes liquefying vegetables to the rapturous delight of a live, if half-witted, audience. And yet “reality” shows keep getting ratings. Who are the viewers? Have houseplants learned to operate remote controls?
  
• Can young people wear their pants any lower? Their waistbands are now at approximately knee level. Where will this trend end? The shins? The feet? Will young people eventually detach themselves from their pants altogether and just drag them along behind, connected to their ankles by a belt?
  

We don't know the answers to any of these questions. All we know is that 2003 is finally, we hope, over. But before we move on, let's put our heads between our knees and take one last look back at this remarkable year, which started, as is so often the case, with…

JANUARY

…which begins with traditional New Year's Day celebrations all over the world, except at the Central Intelligence Agency, which, acting on what it believes to be accurate information, observes Thanksgiving.

In college football, the University of Miami Hurricanes defeat Ohio State in the Fiesta Bowl and reign as national champions for roughly a week, at the end of which a Fiesta Bowl official—a man with the reaction time of a Sequoia who has been standing in the end zone the whole time reflecting on the final play—throws a penalty flag, thus giving the game to Ohio State in what future legal scholars will deem the most flagrant miscarriage of justice in human history. Not that we Miami fans are still bitter.

On a brighter note, President Bush announces a plan to boost the sagging United States economy via a two-pronged stimulus package consisting of (1) visiting Crawford, Tex., and (2) prayer.

Meanwhile, a claim by the Raelians, a UFO cult, that they have produced a human clone baby named Eve is increasingly viewed with skepticism by scientists. “Having looked at their so-called evidence,” state the scientists, “we strongly suspect that the clone baby is actually named Rachel.”

In medical news, researchers studying heart attack victims announce that a person who drinks a glass or two of wine or beer is, quote, “significantly more likely to do the Macarena.”

World tension mounts when North Korea announces that it is withdrawing from the nuclear nonproliferation treaty on the grounds that it's really hard to pronounce “proliferation.” Faced with clear-cut evidence that the North Koreans are actively developing weapons of mass destruction, President Bush vows to determine whether North Korea “is located anywhere near Iraq.”

In politics, Rep. Harold Farnwimble of Ohio becomes the only Democratic member of Congress to formally declare that he is not running for president. He immediately surges ahead in the polls.

On the technological front, a fast-spreading “worm” virus cripples Internet e-mail traffic, briefly bringing the international penis-enlargement industry to…well, to its knees.

In pro football, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers defeat the heavily favored Oakland Raiders and win the Super Bowl, despite the objections of Fiesta Bowl officials who want to award the victory to Ohio State.

Speaking of setbacks, in…

FEBRUARY

…United States coalition-building efforts are dealt a severe blow when France announces that it will not participate in the impending Iraq invasion, a decision that, in the words of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, “could seriously impair our ability to surrender.”

American citizens show their disdain for all things French by boycotting French wine, calling French fries “freedom fries,” and taking showers.

Elsewhere in the War on Terror, the Department of Homeland Security urges Americans to stock up on food, water, flashlights, duct tape, and plastic sheeting. Within hours, al-Qaeda surrenders, stating: “We cannot fight flashlights AND duct tape.”

Meanwhile, tension between the United States and North Korea continues to mount as North Korea, in what the White House calls “a deliberate act of provocation,” uses nuclear missiles to destroy Columbus, Ohio. A visibly angry President Bush warns the North Koreans that they “better not give any of those missiles to Iraq.”

On the economic front, the struggling airline industry undergoes another round of cost cutting, highlighted by United Airlines' announcement that, beginning in March, passengers on international flights “will have to eat each other.”

On Valentine's Day, millions of men give millions of women flowers, cards, and candy as a heartfelt expression of the emotion that also motivates men to observe anniversaries and birthdays: fear.

In entertainment news, Rachel the imaginary UFO cult baby is signed to do a “reality” TV show. In yet another indication of the nation's worsening obesity crisis, a new medical study concludes that Americans are now so fat that “they are causing tides.”

Late in the month, a massive “Storm of the Century” blizzard batters the Northeast with icy blasts and holds the region in its wintry grip, blanketing New England with white stuff, as emergency crews struggle to keep the news media supplied with weather clichés.

And things only get worse in…

MARCH

…when North Korean troops invade Oregon, prompting a grim-faced President Bush to declare that “time is running out for the Iraqi regime.” But the United States continues to have trouble getting other nations to join the coalition and is forced to bribe Turkey by giving the Turkish government an “economic aid package” consisting of $37 billion in cash, plus unlimited nighttime and weekend minutes, plus what is described as a “hard-to-get video” of Britney Spears. With Turkey on board, the coalition now consists of seven nations, assuming you count Guam, Puerto Rico, and Staten Island as nations.

As it becomes clear that an Iraqi invasion is imminent and war is at hand, Democrats in Congress, setting aside partisan politics, pledge “total, unwavering, and unconditional support” for the president and commander in chief “unless anything bad happens.”

While all this is going on, Osama bin Laden attempts to surrender to U.S. authorities but is told to come back later, everybody is busy.

Meanwhile, Saddam Hussein, in a last-ditch effort to stay in power, declares that he has been the victim of “identity theft,” and somebody else, using his name and Social Security number, has actually been running Iraq for the past two decades. In response, the United Nations Security Council, meeting in emergency session, votes 15 to 0 to continue patronizing expensive Manhattan restaurants.

But it is too little, too late. On March 19, coalition forces attack Iraq; within days, they control most of the southern part of the country and have taken many prisoners, including two of the three known Dixie Chicks. They do not immediately uncover any weapons of mass destruction, but they do find a warehouse containing a large quantity of what is believed to be refined sugar, which CIA intelligence analysts note “is a leading cause of tooth decay.”

In nonwar news:

• An outbreak of the SARS virus in Asia is blamed for dozens of deaths, many of them travel agents committing suicide.
  
• The Academy Awards are held, with the Oscar for Best Picture going to
  Chicago,
  only to be taken away by a Fiesta Bowl official and awarded to Ohio State.
  

And speaking of drama, in…

APRIL

…coalition forces capture Baghdad, and hopes soar for a quick resolution to the conflict when a cheering Iraqi crowd topples a huge statue of Saddam. But these hopes are quickly dashed when, tragically, the statue fails to land on Geraldo. Saddam himself is nowhere to be found, though he does release a videotape announcing plans to take his career “in a new direction,” possibly including a “reality” TV show called
Queer Eye for a Dictator Guy,
in which he will undergo a makeover by five gay men, who will then be executed.

On the weapons of mass destruction front, coalition troops discover three barrels of lard, described by U.S. intelligence sources as “a heart attack waiting to happen.”

As the war grinds on, some welcome moments of comic relief are provided by the Iraqi information minister, Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf, who becomes an international laughingstock by continuing to insist, despite overwhelming evidence, that the Americans are being routed. He is quickly hired as a Fiesta Bowl official.

In other news:

• The Masters Golf Tournament goes smoothly despite a mass protest by an estimated four people against Augusta National's membership policy, defended by a person named “Hootie,” of accepting only deceased males. “Someday, we may decide to accept women,” Hootie says, “but only if they are males.”
  
• The New York Times
  suffers a credibility crisis when numerous stories by reporter Jayson Blair are found to contain inaccuracies, such as the assertion, in a story about the D.C.-area sniper case, that the sun is carried across the sky by a giant turtle. (“In fact,” notes the
  Times,
  “it is the moon.”) Blair, thoroughly disgraced, is forced to accept a six-figure book contract.
  
• American Airlines, in a move to cut labor costs, replaces some pilots with baggage handlers, but stresses that this change applies “only to daytime flights.”
  
• North Korean troops capture Wisconsin.
  

But things brighten a bit in…

MAY

…when President Bush lands on the aircraft carrier USS
Abraham Lincoln
off the coast of California and declares to a crowd of sailors that major combat has ended. The jubilation is dampened somewhat when, moments after the president's plane departs, the carrier is severely damaged by a car bomb.

Meanwhile, in Iraq itself, looting continues to be a problem, as dramatized by the discovery that both the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers are missing. On a more positive note, efforts to establish a Western-style democracy in Iraq move forward with the arrival, as consultants, of Florida election officials. Within hours, the nation plunges back into chaos.

Elsewhere abroad, Chinese health authorities, stung by accusations that they have been slow in reacting to the SARS virus, announce that they will execute anybody who gets sick.

In domestic news, Congress enacts massive tax cuts in an effort to, in the words of a Republican leader, “see if we can push the deficit over the skillion-dollar mark.” The major Democratic presidential candidates denounce the cuts and vow to repeal them, because promising to increase taxes is a proven vote winner on the planet they come from, namely, Planet Walter Mondale.

Florida becomes the latest state to ban smoking in restaurants. California, determined to stay ahead of the trend, bans eating in restaurants.

In an inspiring story of courage, hiker Aron Ralston, trapped in a remote Utah canyon, frees himself by amputating his own right arm. Somehow he manages to fashion a tourniquet and hike back to civilization, where he is slapped with a $17 million negligence lawsuit by lawyers representing the arm.

North Korean troops occupy the Washington Monument.

In sports, golfer Annika Sorenstam competes in a PGA tournament, setting off a major round of diaper changing among the membership of Augusta National. Meanwhile, Nike signs a $90 million endorsement deal with eighteen-year-old basketball player and Humvee owner LeBron James Incorporated. To pay for this, Nike raises the average price of a pair of its sneakers to $385, which includes $1.52 for materials and 17 cents for labor.