Okay, is everyone finished flogging the sad-sack year 2020? The annum which brought us political chaos, a mind-numbing pandemic, and worst of all, the demise of our favorite bistro? If not, remember the poor year for its occasional gifts. Everybody learned to read again. America’s moribund drive-in theaters made a giant comeback. The Tampa Bay Rays proved a baseball team with no money could still make the World Series. And the Trump Roach Government crashed to Earth, finally dispelled by an army of pest-control experts carrying spray cans. Maybe in the long run 2020 will be celebrated as the year the future members of the United States Congress started to think about reinstating the long-suffering one-man, one-vote philosophy, blowing up the Electoral College and making the citizen in California equal to the man in Wyoming. From little seeds grow mighty trees. Aeschylus told us that.
It’s 2021—Now What?
You’ll want to start your celebrating early, perhaps as soon as New year’s Eve, to be in proper shape for the first day of 2021. January 1, after all, is National Hangover Day. Are you ready for some football?
Here’s the bad news and the good news; January 3 is Fruitcake Toss Day. For those of us who love our baked goods, this is way too soon to dispose of the holiday fruitcake, even if grandma did use a little too much clove this year. On the other hand, if this means it’s finally time to toss out the likes of Rudy Giuliani, Betsy DeVos and the loopy Roger Stone, we’re all for it.
We’re very excited for the fun-filled antics of Play God Day on January 9th. For those of you who practice this every day, you’re disqualified. The rest of us can polish up our thunderbolts, grow long beards and speak in Godlike sentences, which means adding “eth” to every verb you utter. I thinketh it behooveth us to practice-eth. Hmmn.
On January 11th, it’s the always-popular Learn Your Name In Morse Code Day. Who doesn’t want to do that? Here’s a helpful chart:
January 13 is National Take The Stairs Day, a happy occasion for elevator-haters and any rational person terrified of escalators. Nothing good can happen on any of these apparatuses, with the possible exception of saving a half-hour getting to the top of the Empire State Building. Celebrated by far more people going down than up.
January 14 is the dreaded Dress Up Your Pet Day. Critters everywhere have besieged The Flying Pie, begging us to discourage this horrendous practice. “And if you MUST foist this debacle upon us, please dress us in military uniforms rather than clownwear,” pleads Bowser the beagle. What he said.
January 17 is the widely-practiced Ditch New Year’s Resolutions Day. Gymgoers in particular are familiar with this loafer’s holiday as they begin to see the rah-rah newbies of January 2 become disillusioned with the magnitude of their task, pack up their shiny new $150 sneakers and head for the exits. Some wait to celebrate the day in February or March, but the handwriting is on the wall in the first two weeks.
January 20th, always a possibility for coldest day of the year, is appropriately Penguin Awareness Day, so take a penguin to lunch. A word of caution, however; skip the vegetarian restaurants. The big guys are carnivores and will eat only meat, preferably krill, squid and fish. Occasionally, in times of financial duress, they may have a meatball sandwich. Do not give your penguin sprouts or bean curd. He will spit at you.
We’re sure you already know this but January 23 is National Pie Day, a 24-hour period where grandmothers everywhere leap around their kitchens preparing pies of every description, starting from scratch to honor the pie-making heroes of the old days. Long-lost rolling pins will be brought to the fore, apples will be peeled, something called dough will be put to use. The finished pies will be placed on window sills to cool, permitting the fine aroma to permeate the neighborhood. Was there ever a day more sacred than Pie Day? Well, maybe November 2, 1940, when Bill Killeen was born. But probably not.
January 28 is National Kazoo Day, the occasion for mammoth parades in which odd human beings called Mummers march through the streets humming into curious little musical instruments. The oscillating air pressure of the hum makes the kazoo’s membrane vibrate resulting in a sound resembling a colony of disgruntled bees or a congress of elves all speaking at the same time. Listen, it’s really a lot better than it sounds.
Finally, January 31 is the ever-popular Inspire Your Heart With Art Day, during which legions of followers gather up floral bouquets and cheese treats and meet at the Jonesville, Florida home of Pie pal Art Johnson. Art gives his blessing and a few words of guidance and the feast is on. Cows may be available for petting if it doesn’t rain.
What?? Nancy Kay begs to differ. She says IYHWA Day is for artists and would-be creative people to camp out in the wilderness, putting paint to canvas. Art Johnson isn’t going to be happy to hear this.
Where The Hell Is Karnak, Anyway?
In February of 2019, a young Englishwoman named Jessica Adams told anyone who would listen that a great virus would “disrupt the world.” She even mentioned the exact date the first victim died in Wuhan. Now, we here at The Flying Pie are not happy about this. No, indeed. We would prefer our prognosticators have proper seers’ names like Madame Esmeralda or The Great Cassandra or at least Nostradamus. Who’s going to pay any attention to somebody named Jessica Adams? Especially when she says the impending Covid vaccines will be faulty and we’ll have to live with the disease. On the other hand, Jessica advises that the climate crisis will be resolved in just six years. On first blush, that’s great news, but what’s Greta Thunberg going to do now?
You’re not going to believe this, but after months of aggressive snooping, The Flying Pie has located retired prophet Karnak the Great, now living in a converted railroad boxcar in rural Levy County. Like Garbo, Karnak just wants to be left alone. “There’s way too much pressure on us seers,” he claims. “You predict the end of the world, it doesn’t happen. So what? Everybody gets their undies in a twist. You think the end of the world is so easy to predict, you try it.”
Karnak claims that his predictions are correct 86.2% of the time but he never gets any credit for that. “It’s just the little mistakes they remember. Okay, so I missed on Hiroshima and Nagasaki---nobody got that right. But I had the one about Princess Di and the reporters. I TOLD everybody Mike Pence would be the instigator of the Zombie Apocalypse. Who else had the Rays in the World Series?”
Despite his reluctance to predict events in the year 2021, Karnak yielded when we brought him 200 boxes of Dunkin Donuts and an oiltruck full of coffee. This is the way The Man sees it:
Karnak Predicts:
1. Donald Trump will move to Tripoli and become a pirate. Why not, he’s already got the crew. First mate Peg-leg Giuliani will run the ship, Ivanka will stitch up some buccaneer garb and Jared Kushner will choreograph the sea wolf dances. Lindsay Graham can play housemother. The Trump vessel will sneak about the seven seas robbing the poor to pay the rich, just like in the old days. On slow days, they’ll fire a few rounds at pesky Greenpeace ships just for laughs.
2. The Covid-19 pandemic will turn rednecks gay. A heretofore unknown side effect of the dreaded virus will chafe the moss off certain critical genes of male rednecks, gradually turning them into homosexuals. Georgia will become “The Antique State” and the Alabama Crimson Tide will feature swishy male cheerleaders in divine uniforms. The University of Mississippi band will strut around the field at halftime playing “YMCA.” And the state of South Carolina, not to be outdone, will declare Judy Garland’s birthday a state holiday.
3. Mike Pence will abandon politics and open a megachurch. After having his flattened lips injected and plumped back up after years of kissing the ashen white rump of his fuehrer, the ex-veep will go back to his first love, organized religion. Land has been purchased and construction begun on a massive, tri-steepled worship theater on the outskirts of Tarzana, California and Pence is all agog over the possibilities. “I see a great televised mission to gather souls for Jesus. I see our message sweeping through every trailer park in the country. I see buckets of money coming in to buy the pastor a Lear Jet and a big fancy boat and a credit card at the Cadillac Ranch,” said minister Pence. “All the other ex-Trumpers are cashing in, why not me?”
4. Al Franken will announce his candidacy for president in 2024. “So I fondled. Trump fondled and he got elected. Joe fondled, even if he didn’t know it, and he got elected. What’s a little fondling among friends? I’m not going to say Biden will be too old to run again, but they tell me the other day he was trying to get Lawrence Welk to play at the Inaugural Ball. Nobody really likes Kamala. Bernie’s older than dirt. So that leaves the Asian guy who wants to give away money, Julian Castro, who’s, like, 19 years old, and me. Who would YOU vote for? Franken claims SNL pal Bill Murray will be his campaign manager and Roseanne Roseannadanna will come out of retirement to act as press secretary. “But only if Bill Killeen doesn’t run,” said Roseanne.
5. Gary Borse will travel to Proxima Centauri on a space ship and return to tell about it. GB, Fairfield’s foremost painter-UFOlogist, will zip through the universe on a certified flying saucer and spend a week on Earth’s nearest habitable neighbor, discussing interplanetary relations and exchanging recipes. Borse is hoping the leaders of Proxima Centauri will present him with the solution to World Peace. In exchange, he is bringing a rare baseball signed by Babe Ruth.
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