I don’t know what awaits in 2012, but I think I speak for everyone when I say I hope I don’t die. Not dying is my primary hope. My second-order hopes (it’s a hope pyramid) include not becoming homeless and not getting a debilitating illness that forces me to give up my dreams, or that somehow alienates all my friends. But if my friends feel alienated by my debilitating illness, I guess they weren’t really friends to begin with.
I don’t want to talk about my first- and second- order hopes in the Standard, though, because talking about them might jinx them. Talking about any hope might jinx it, but damned if I’m going to risk my life for a year-end list.
I just remembered what “damned” means, so I take that back.
My third-order hopes involve ways to better my life, beyond just keeping it, so they would be kind of boring for you to hear about unless you sell something that I would like to buy. Instead, I’ll tell you my fourth-order hopes for 2012, which are for the betterment of the human race.
THEY INVENT A WAY TO SMELL THROUGH THE INTERNET
Have you ever wondered what a dead body smells like? Of course you have, unless you’ve actually smelled one. You can only hear about so much about some horrible thing before you start wondering what it’s like. If you think you disagree, remember that just because you wonder what a dead body smells like doesn’t mean you’d actually kill someone to find out. You see the problem.
There are lots of other smells I’d like to smell, such as that flower that smells like dead bodies, and the living body of an eighteenth-century Londoner, all covered in filth. There’s no reason why the internet couldn’t enrich us in this way.
A SECRET CLUB FOR PEOPLE IN THE KNOW
When I was a kid, I felt like everyone else was in the know about something that I hadn’t learned yet. I thought I’d grow out of it once I learned a bunch, but it turns out the only thing I needed to learn was that everyone feels this way. That’s why it feels so good to actually be in the know about something: it’s like you’ve beat the human condition. I’m envisioning a club for people in the know. We wouldn’t even have do anything besides know. Some chess every now and again would be nice.
THEY INVENT A PILL THAT TURNS CHEESE INTO LETTUCE IN YOUR THROAT
No matter what society says, people are not going to stop eating cheese. Sometimes people get so stressed out about being told not to eat cheese that they eat cheese and then make themselves vomit. That’s a waste of cheese and a lousy way to go through life. The better way to fight obesity would be to invent a pill that turns cheese into lettuce once it’s already been tasted, chewed, and swallowed. No one gets obese on lettuce, except for people who are obese because that’s just the way their bodies are. Another way to fight obesity would be to completely rewire the human brain so that we aren’t programmed to want lots of food, or roll back the clock to a time when we had to run around foraging and die skinny at 30.
THEY DISCOVER AN AFTERLIFE
Even if all my second, third, and fourth order hopes came true, it wouldn’t change the fact that we all have to become nothing eventually. Some people say they’re OK with that, but none of them will tell me how they became OK with it, which is incredibly cruel of them. Becoming nothing is the worst thing that could ever happen to me, and it will definitely happen.
Sometimes I wish that science would pretend there’s an afterlife for the greater good. Nothing fancy, just a place to sit and hang out and not be nothing. The day they discover an afterlife, drinks will be on me. I’ll even buy a cake.
Alexandra Molotkow used to write the weekly Minutiae column and will return in the New Year, hopefully before they discover an afterlife. Follow her on Twitter at @alexmolotkow.
