y2k

I got a call recently from someone who was distraught by what she has heard about the Y2K computer bug. Like many other people, this person was wondering what the Y2K bug would mean for her personally and what she could do about it.

In case you don’t know what Y2K is, you’re obviously from an Amish community in Pennsylvania or Ohio, and therefore have nothing to worry about, so you can skip the next paragraph.

The Y2K bug stems from a programming shortcut that makes computers look only at the last two digits in the year. On Jan. 1, 2000, so the story goes, computers will think it’s 1900 and the IRS mainframe immediately will begin issuing refunds for all the taxes collected during the last 100 years. Well, maybe not, but I can dream.

The truth is, for all the furor over it the past few years, Y2K has caught absolutely nobody by surprise. My younger brother Ward figured it out when he was 8 because all the deposit slips at Dollar Savings Bank had 19__ for the year, and even he could tell that 2000 wouldn’t fit into that little space, and even if it could, it would say 192000.

So if an 8-year-old who hadn’t even seen a computer could figure it out, why couldn’t all the computer programmers figure a way around it? Actually, they did, but they decided they could make more money by waiting 20 years for people to start panicking and then rolling out the Y2K-compliant merchandise at inflated prices.

A few self-labeled computer experts have predicted the computer problems will result in incredible disaster worldwide, from airplanes crashing and fax machines not working right to the entire eastern seaboard sinking beneath the waves of the Atlantic Ocean.

As a result, a lot of people have been buying property in Ohio for the real-estate appreciation when it becomes beachfront property, once they have made sure the land isn’t under any major airplane routes.

Other impressionable people have equated Y2K with the End of the World, especially because -- as everyone knows -- round numbers make God very angry, so he goes around smiting people with greater frequency than normal.

Some people, like doomsday prophet Gary North, have even offered to help God with the smiting business, and have drawn up lists of people to smite. (We can be sure newspaper editors are high on that list.)

Otherwise normal people have been buying houses in the woods and stockpiling ammunition and toilet paper. My advice for the rest of us is, if you have a house in the woods, sell it immediately and buy property in Ohio.

With your leftover money, invest heavily in the firearms and toilet-paper industries, and remember to buy some 24-packs of Charmin yourself. There will be no toilet paper production after civilization collapses in January, so those two-ply sheets will be worth their weight in gold.

My Uncle Dave Coates recently declared that the bulk of the Y2K craze is media-driven. Are you kidding me? Of course it is. This is the best thing that’s happened to newspapers since Watergate.

Which story would you rather read: "New Jersey will perish in flames on Jan. 1" or "Bob Oaks considers run for school board?" I would too, but unfortunately Bob missed the filing deadline to run this year.

So we’ve been milking Y2K for all we can. So far, I’ve been able to get a three-part series, a couple letters, two cartoons and a column out of it in just this newspaper.

My big problem next January won’t be how to live in a house without running water or electricity, it’s going to be what to write about.