With the start of the New Year nigh upon us once again, it is altogether natural to become somewhat reflective concerning the passing of the years and the changes they bring to this world of ours. Of course, it is even more altogether natural to become somewhat reflective concerning getting drunk off of cheap beer until you reach the point where a lampshade becomes a compelling sartorial choice before kissing a random girl who didn’t look all that attractive when you first showed up at the party that night, but hey, I’m sure y’all know all about that part firsthand and don’t need me to explain it to you. So instead, I’m gonna take this opportunity to delve once more into the sock drawer of history, as we travel way back in time to learn about the first New Year’s ever.
‘Twas the year 785 B.C. Indeed, it had been the year 785 B.C. since anyone could remember, because nobody had really gotten around to inventing the concept of New Years yet, which, needless to say, complicated things considerably. Every single person on Earth was one year old; driver’s licenses were absolutely useless as a way of determining who was allowed to buy any of the fine prehistoric beers then available. The calendar industry suffered terribly, as all you needed to do after December was flip it on back over to January and start again (this, incidentally, was what spawned the first off the wall calendar, when Gary Larson realized that there was money to be made off of nomads, monkeys, Paris Hilton, and other creatures that didn’t know how to use walls yet). VH1 only had one show running at the time, “All About The 80s” and it encompassed all of human experience up to that point. “Hey, remember Noah’s
Federal governments the world over were constantly in a state of abject poverty, having already collected all the income taxes for the 785 B.C. fiscal year many generations ago (they subsisted pretty much entirely off of speeding tickets and selling naming rights on the royal family to advertisers, a phenomenon generally held responsible for the hapless Emperor Bubble Yum of Rome and the widely forgotten Pharaoh Little Debbie of Egypt). Time machines didn’t work properly at all, since all you had to do was punch in 785 B.C. as your destination year and the entire universe would implode in a shower of causal paradoxes and trippy special effects with melted watches and flying clocks and whatnot (fortunately, this only happened a couple of dozen times). Time magazine had only had one Man of The Year ever (Bob Dole). In short, it was a particularly silly time to be alive. Science fiction writers had no way whatsoever of explaining how far in the future their stories were taking place, and had to rely completely on the novel innovations of hovercars and jackets with little shoulder fins on them to convey futurosity.
This state of things however might have gone on far longer than it already had, had not a great and visionary man stepped forward and tripped over the ottoman of greatness in his quest to enlighten mankind. That man was none other than Copernicus’s most august of forefathers, Carlpernicus, who, after failing in his quest to develop the wireless abacus, the three hump limousine camel, and Michael Jackson, finally hit upon the notion that the Earth was in fact forever circling the Sun and that it was conceivable that this new discovery might be used as a point of demarcation for something he called “The New Year.” The rulers of the civilized world, giddy as a bunch of prehistoric schoolgirls at the prospects for increased taxation and calendar sales, agreed almost at once to this bold new proposal, and plans were made to usher in this new and wondrous thing with all the pomp and tackiness that it deserved.
Preparations were made. A young Dick Clark was brought onboard to be master of ceremonies. A giant ball was manufactured by tying a bunch of sheep together and soaking them in pitch. A forsaken swamp in central Pangaea was christened Times Square and humorous novelty glasses shaped like the number 784 were made in truly epic numbers (unfortunately, 784 is not a number which lends itself at all to glasses, and as a result most of the people who bought them ended up walking off cliffs or getting eaten by mastodons. Scientists now refer to this great moment in natural selection as “The Culling of the Tards”).
At last the blessed night arrived. Dick Clark said some stuff, the sheep ball was set gloriously ablaze and hurled from the mightiest catapult in the land, and all three computers in the world crashed because their programmers had neglected to design them with an understanding of any year besides 785 B.C. People drank large quantities of mead, lampshades were worn, Jimmy Stewart movies were watched, and all around the world, a good time was had by all (except in China, which had been out taking a leak when the news went around, so they didn’t get word of this whole New Year thing until around February; so they just decided to have their own New Years then, and make up for being late by having a bunch of dragons and stuff).
And thus has it been every year since (except during World War II, when Dick Clark was needed for the war effort and his part was played by a herd of woodchucks in a leisure suit), and so may it be forever hence. At any rate, however, have a happy New Year, and look out for those mastodons.
