We’re now a week and a half into 2013 and no one’s been able to provide a definitive new date for the end of the world. And if you’re

anything like me, you must be a nervous wreck.

I mean, there’s something comforting about knowing exactly when the planet will be destroyed. Sure, there’s that fiery cataclysm part, but
at least you can plan. And I’m a planner. I mean, I know what I’m doing every weekend from now through February. I know where I’m going on vacation in 2014. (If there is a 2014.) I know where there’s a stash of Windex bottles if the Apocalypse turns out to be a filthy mess.

Naturally, I thought the End Times were coming when I was little, and women started leaving the home and having careers. God is clearly
enraged, I thought. I was certain it was here when black people started legally marrying white people. Because if that doesn’t spell spiritual calamity, I don’t know what does. Then I was convinced the moment was upon us when gays were allowed to protect our country. Surely, I thought, God will now blow the whole business up. After all, that’s what our religious leaders who have TV shows assured us would happen.

But no Four Horsemen.

No raging hellfires.

All of these events that were hailed as the downfall of western civilization have had no negative effect at all.

And I have to tell you, I’m getting a little aggravated. Because if I don’t know the ground rules for Armageddon, I cannot properly plan
for it.

So, what, I’m now left wondering, would be cause for God to incite the end of humanity?

Maybe it’s not some event that made one group of people feel empowered and had no impact on the rest. Maybe it’s an event where all of us
are actually, truly, wronged, in a way that virtually cannot be disputed. Where the question is not one of religiously defined immorality, but of simple inhumanity.

Like the NRA refusing to ban assault weapons so that it would be harder to kill 26 people at a grade school.

Or Congress having their heads so far up their asses that they can’t manage to appropriate money for the victims of a hurricane.

Or even an insurance company that was bailed out by the American people suing the government because the “terms were too stringent”.

Yeah, that feels more Apocalyptic to me. And I’m really glad I came to this conclusion. Because I bought a new skinny suit for the Apocalypse,
and it’s gonna take some time to get into that thing.

When my first book came out, my partner presented me with a really
special gift: a scrapbook, filled with press clippings, reviews, photos from
the book launch events, etc. It was, and is, a prized memento of a time in my
life of which I’m proud. I wrote a memoir that the editor of The Help edited, Penguin published, a
few complete strangers actually bought, and Sony optioned as a TV series. And
I’m close to finishing a second book.

I feel like I’ve accomplished something small but worthwhile
with my life. And really, isn’t that all any of us wants? A scrapbook to wave
over our heads to prove that we did something that contributed to the world, or
at least that made others feel like total losers?

The problem, for most people, though, is that
accomplishments like this take time. And people with children don’t have time. Dozens of my co-workers have,
at one time or another, marched up to me and demanded, “How did you find the
time to write a book?” (Our work days are long and sometimes bitch-slappingly
stressful.)

And I always reply, “You know all that time you spend taking
Sophie/Bryce/Rainbow to Little League/Drug Counseling/Toddlers and Tiaras auditions? That’s
when I write.”

This makes them feel a little less lazy and slothful. And really,
they shouldn’t feel lazy and slothful. Their
accomplishments are those beautiful children – our world’s future leaders –
that they have nurtured, taught, and guided. Their scrapbook needn’t be
mementos of a book release, or album launch, or movie premiere. It can be
memories of the special moments in their children’s lives.

Take my best friend’s sister-in-law. She has raised three
children and, in her lovely double-wide in West Virginia, has a beer barrel coffee
table piled high with scrapbooks. And what are those scrapbooks filled with? Memories
of the kids’ arrests and incarcerations – press clippings, mug shots, prisoner
number tags from uniforms.

Memories that say, “Job well done, Shirlene. JOB WELL DONE.”

I am proud to say that I have never personally mooned anyone from the altar of the Sistine Chapel. Nor have I ever hurled onto a crucifix. I have never felt moved to get drunk and mack out in the back pew of St. Paul’s Cathedral. Or encouraged a stripper to “work that pole” in the Vatican.

I have always striven to show the world’s religious monuments and icons (even the heretical ones) a measure of respect and reverence. Which is, apparently, less than I can say for the Dublin Wax Works in Ireland, which has inherited possession of the original 1970’s Popemobile and is about to begin renting it out for proms, stag parties and bachelorette binges.

Okay, granted, as a non-Catholic, there is something fun about the thought of sitting on a throne in a giant glass bubble, wearing a big hat and gold dress and throwing condom wrappers (with no condoms inside) at the throngs as someone drives me down a parade route.  After all, there’s probably a three hour minimum and you gotta get your money’s worth.

But that is where I draw the line. I mean, it’s the Popemobile. Anything more than that is just bad taste.

Flashing your t**s at passing cars? Unseemly. Screaming the Louisiana fight song out the hermetically sealed windows? Vulgar. Losing your virginity in the back seat? Ironic, and a little hilarious…but indelicate.

No, I would treat the Popemobile with the esteem and veneration such a hallowed object deserves. I would use it to drive my Hindu, Buddhist, Islamic and Jewish friends to the site of the New Inquisition (sponsored by Red Bull), where they would be tortured for believing something other than the Catholic faith.

Just like Pope Innocent IV did.

Good times.

I recently saw a show where a mother forgave the drunk driver who killed her daughter.

And as if that weren’t hard ENOUGH to imagine, forgiveness was only the tip of this enlightened iceberg.

She has this guy over for Sunday dinners. They exchange gifts at Christmas (nothing of the Jack Daniels variety, one presumes). She calls him to gossip about the neighbors. “He’s as special to me as if he were my own son,” she said on this talk show, as she gently took his hand and the audience (including me) sobbed into our Pop Tarts.

This is a level of compassion and absolution that is both stunning and admirable. And it’s one that I, too, aspire to achieve.

I guess I say “aspire to” because I know that if I were in her shoes, I would not want this man to spend his life in prison, either. But what I might want is for him to spend his life attempting to absolve his wrongdoing by replacing the daughter I lost.

Actually, physically replacing her.

Oh, sure, it might feel a tad awkward at first, having a 40-year-old sitting at the breakfast table wearing a Catholic school girl’s outfit. Sure, it might be hard trying to find Mary Janes in size 13. Discipline could be a challenge when trying to take a 160-pound man over your knee for a spanking – not to mention the creepy look of anticipation on his face.

I suppose it could get weird around the time the daughter would have hit puberty and you have to have that “special talk”. And braiding her hair might lose something when the wig keeps coming off his head.

But imagine the torture of a grown man having to pretend to be excited about The Vampire Diaries and Justin Bieber and auditioning lip gloss. Picture the deliciously excruciating moment when he has to use his first tampon. Consider the gratification of seeing your little girl all dressed up in the ugliest f***ing prom dress you can lay your hands on. (“If a wrist corsage was good enough for me, young lady, it’s good enough for YOU.”)

Yeah, I guess I’m not as enlightened as I’d like to be.

But come on, that would be FUN.

As someone in my obscenely late early 30’s, one of the life truths I’ve come to know is that, all too often, people aren’t the façade they present to the world.

Occasionally, that’s a good thing.

From a very macho Italian guy from the Bronx, who I worked with until recently:

“I used to man the men’s room at a strip club from noon to 4. Couldn’t start earlier, ‘cause I took ballet classes in the morning.”

Mostly, it’s not.

From a lovely, spiritual goddess type I got to know in a week-long personal growth seminar:

“My brother just doesn’t get it – he is so unenlightened. So I tried to have him killed.”

From an extended family member, who lived with me and who I didn’t know was an alcoholic:

“Yes, that’s vodka in the toilet bowl. I didn’t think you’d look in there.”

From a high-level executive and family man at the company I used to work for:

(looking out his office window with binoculars as his employees walk by the office) God, there are some HOT women in that building!

From a female friend who’s a senior HR executive at a global company:

“Our president bet me that I wouldn’t make out with this woman in sales, so I did. I won fifty bucks.”

From a woman I worked with who embezzled almost a million dollars:

(to the judge) “I wanted to get cornrows, and those are expensive. And then, you know, you just get carried away.” (She was white, which makes it even worse.)