Mike

Ball

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August 25, 2008

OK, So It’s the End of the World

Not too long ago the Sci Fi Channel produced a TV special, called Countdown To Doomsday in which experts consider 10 really crappy ways human civilization might come to an end. Possibilities include invasion by aliens (I think they mean the kind that likes to abduct and conduct experiments on the residents of trailer parks in Alabama, rather than the housekeeping staff from the Red Roof Inn), getting into a cosmic fender-bender with an uninsured giant meteorite or becoming slaves to a generation of ruthless futuristic killer robots – not including the one who is currently the Governator of California.

Despite the Sci Fi Channel’s credentials as an unimpeachable scholarly institution, and even though the possibilities they present are pretty darned scary, I think they’ve overlooked one of the most significant dangers facing our world today. I refer, of course, to Sudden Catastrophic Loss of Cellular, or SCLOC (pronounced, “SCLOC”).

OK, granted, SCLOC might not seem as unpleasant as being proctologically probed by a seven-foot-tall carnivorous avocado from Rigel 9, but appearances can be deceiving. Just picture the following nightmare scenario:

You’re driving down the street, using your cell phone to make sure that your sister is current on all the critical details of your last dental check-up. Everything seems perfectly normal – birds are singing, traffic is flowing, and pedestrians are leaping to relative safety as you weave past, shouting, “Not lost – I said ‘flossed!’”

At that moment, somewhere near Encino, California, a cellular technician is taking an unauthorized lunch break at his workstation. Distracted because he is also downloading the latest Dungeon Master Centerfold screen saver for his PC, he accidentally knocks his cup of gazpacho into the main control terminal, causing a cascading power failure that takes down the entire North American Cellular Grid.

Back in your car, your phone connection suddenly goes dead. Steering with your knees, you redial. Nothing. You check all your phone’s indicators, looking for any way to explain the malfunction – the battery shows more than half-charged; the little antenna-picture thingy shows four bars; you paid the bill last Tuesday, and you’re really sure the check should have cleared before the 15th.

You look up to see a motorist coming from the opposite direction, shaking his phone and banging it on the steering wheel. He sees you, swerves, and then plunges into a ravine, his car in flames. And as he disappears from view he shouts into his Bluetooth headset, “Can you hear me? Bill? Hello? HELLOOOOOOOOOooooooo?”

You try rebooting your phone, and your car veers off the road and into the crowded main hallway of a high school. Kids shrieking the names of friends into their own inert iPhones, frantically trying to retrieve the pictures they took at Caitlin’s party last weekend, flash past your windows. The assistant principal disappears beneath your onrushing car, typing his frantic last words into his Blackberry – a message that will, tragically, never be delivered.

Abandoning your vehicle in the lunch room under a pile of Salisbury steaks and tater tots, you stagger back out into the street, tenderly cradling your lifeless cell phone. Distant explosions and screams of, “You’re breaking up! Hello?” assault your ears. At that moment you realize that the unthinkable has happened – the entire world around you is mobile no more!

Falling to your knees you look skyward, seeking some answer or shred of comfort in the heavens, overcome by the stark realization that your sister may not find out what the dentist said about your abscessed molar until you get home and call her on the land line.

May Verizon help us all!

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