Welcome to the beginning of a new year, and the beginning of a new decade! This is a time when most of us will reflect on the past. I, however, have retrieved my crystal ball from the back of a dark closet to make predictions for the future. It”s been a while since this old ball was used. No promises about the accuracy, but here they are.
1. Beauty contestants will be required to take a vow of silence. Anyone with the word “Miss” in her title will lose her crown if she grants interviews. Comments about geography or world politics will result in one year”s probation without makeup.
2. Baseball players, annoyed that footballers have adopted the habit of donning baseball caps on the sidelines, will start wearing football helmets in the dugout. In retaliation, football pros will switch to wearing chef hats on the bench.
3. Thanks to role models like Brangelina and Madonna, children of our own race will go out of style. International baby swaps will be the rage, so that everyone has the opportunity to experience the joys and confusion of inter-cultural parenthood. As this trend becomes more extreme, children will be bred for pleasing racial mixes, spawning baby mills (a la puppy mills) to achieve desirable results.
4. Writers will become obsolete. New movie releases will only be re-makes of old films. Television will be limited to cameras in our homes; reality shows that are not only real, but mind-numbingly boring, as well. As the profession of writing, and therefore reading, becomes extinct, conversations will be limited to the repetition of clichés.
5. All food will not only be low-calorie, but will produce negative calories. As we eat, the pounds will disappear, making everyone svelte. This will create a backlash. Eventually, obesity will become stylish and difficult to achieve.
6. Men will take hormones to become pregnant. Women will take hormones to grow goatees.
7. Metal will become the new black. The very rich will wear clothing of chain mail, like medieval knights, while poor folks will fashion shirts and skirts from aluminum foil.
8. Sometime in the next decade, we will elect a dog for president. Executive decisions will be made by which toy or treat he picks up. This will be interpreted by placing the objects on a grid, something like a bingo card. Special advisors will be trained to interpret results.
9. Vodou will become the religion of the nation. Sins will be determined by tossing chicken bones and beads into a circle of cornmeal. Once again, only those skilled in that discipline will be able to understand the outcome.
10. The Golden Triangle will become an arts Mecca. Pilgrims from all over the world will flock to this center of a new renaissance. Visual arts, music, and all those disappearing authors, will create an environment of beauty and theatre never before seen in The United States. This will terrify the “old guard,” who then build a Berlin Wall-type edifice around the us, trying in vain to prevent change of any sort. Consequently, black market enterprise will emerge, helping the faithful scale the wall, or dig under it, or squeeze through cracks in the edifice.
Well, my crystal ball has never been the most precise.
I believe that”s from all those years of sharing the stage with comediennes.
So, just take what you like from these kooky predictions.
And let”s hope that our future reality is more humorous than frightening.
Adele Elliott, a New Orleans native, moved to Columbus after Hurricane Katrina.
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