By Helen Morgan
Can you imagine the year as 2040 and you are 50 years old? Age happens to even the best of us, and by that date most AWC students will be at or around that golden age of pot bellies, bald heads and memory loss. Hard to imagine, I know. Based on current habits, scientific advancements and technology, I have compiled a few hints of what the future might hold for you:
Your babies and grandbabies will be named using abbreviations from text messaging. The most popular girls name will be Ily,(I love you), and boys will be Brb (be right back.) Just think, when Brb passes away, no one will have to mourn.
As the science field gains more and more improvements in maintaining Ily and Brb's lives, the world population will expand from the current six billion to a whopping nine billion. Older people like you will have so many mechanical parts built in to keep you active that, instead of calling you retired, you will become Romans -- half robot, half human.
With this expansion, the spiritual philosophy of the 12-step programs will also explode; everyone worldwide will either be in a program or have a relationship with someone who is. Thus, the principles will be the main staple of everyone's mental diet; you will greet everyone with "Hi, I'm Ily, I'm a chocoholic (alcoholic, whiner, mother -- or whatever your problem is).
Brb and Ily will have closed the full evolutionary circle with underground housing (the new word for fancy caves) to avoid the scorching radiation of the climate change. Work and socialization will be accomplished strictly through holograms and computers. Mail and other deliveries (not including babies) will be done through suction tubes like the ones banks used to have at their drive-ups.
The American population will be so fed up with the empty promises and political bickering during campaigns that the politicians will be whichever American gets his or her name pulled from the barrel. Scary thought: imagine Jeff Black running toward the inaugural stage with his tights and flamboyant mask shouting, "Nacho Libre, I am your presidente!"
As if turning 50 won't be bad enough, in an ironic twist of fate, the year 2040 contains a leap year with three occurrences of Friday the 13th -- in January, July and October. That almost makes you feel doomed before you even get there, huh? You will have one more extra day to prolong the agony of being a half century old, plus three extra chances to have something else equally appalling and tragic happen to you. This will lead to yet one more 12-step program for paraskavedekatriaphobias, the fear of Friday the 13th. (I didn't make that word up, I promise!)
Yes, the sciences will have accomplished much in the year 2040, but you will wake up one chilly morning with still no cure for your miserable common cold.
