Satire on the 2012 Apocalypse

Summer of 2020: In the dusty hills of Babbleon, on the border of western Talkistan, a team of archaeologists from Synapses University made a stunning discovery. Buried deep beneath the rubble of an ancient metropolitan city, archaeologist Felicity Smart found a black object with numbered buttons and a cord jutting out and attached to a concave earpiece.

"I dusted it off," Felicity said. "Put the piece to my ear and heard a woman's voice incanting the last words of a dying civilization: 'If you'd like to make a call, hang up and dial again.' That's when I alerted the others."

"It was amazing," added fellow archaeologist Brent Ballyhoo. "Felicity had discovered a landline phone. The BlackBerries, iPhones, and other technologically advanced mobile phones stopped functioning when the satellites exploded and the cell towers crashed. To recover an actual voice transmitting relic from that time period was a breathtaking discovery."

Finding the phone enabled the team to inform the world of their discovery in record time. Felicity explained, "Instead of having to use the current undependable mode of communication, a one-legged carrier pigeon with singed wings and a busted beak, on a whim I decided to dial random numbers. Suddenly, there's this guy speaking English at the other end of the line. Matt Entree, the only survivor from the American Consulate, answered the phone."

Dumb luck and ingenuity helped Matt Entree survive the devastation of 2012. A fifty-something baby boomer, Matt attended grade school during the '60s, when the government conducted nuclear survival drills. At the sound of the sirens, Matt knew exactly what to do. He dove beneath his steel desk, and huddled in a ball. The last thing he remembered hearing, besides the coffee machine exploding, was his coworkers laughing at him as they melted while ingesting cup-after-cup of Poland Springs from the water cooler in the hope it would douse the flames.

Other known survivors of 2012 included thieves stealing money from bank vaults, baby boomers not affected by memory loss due to age or frequent pot smoking, who remembered to crouch under a desk, as well as government workers vacationing at the MGM Grand bunker in Las Vegas.

Felicity and her team of archaeologists, who survived 2012 after becoming lost in the catacombs of Alexandria, Egypt, are energized by their discovery. They are optimistic about finding other remnants of the twentieth century, like the Nintendo Wii, flat screen televisions and assorted electronic equipment relegated to storage during the 2008/2009 recession, a Volvo, highly rated in crash tests, and concentrated food with a long shelf life, such as MREs and canned items. The team also hopes to find a can opener.