(SitNews) Ketchikan, Alaska - Writers are inherently lazy sorts.

I know what of I speak. I have been procrastinating at the keyboard ever since I was old enough to reach the keys.

When I was very young my mother, despairing of my irredeemably dreadful handwriting, bought a manual typewriter and said "this is your best friend, learn to use it."

Looking back, that does seem a little harsh. Imagine having to double-date in high school with a Smith Corona.

My handwriting was so bad that when I was in elementary school, my teachers gave up assigning me in-class essays. I might have been writing in Urdu for all they could tell. My favorite red inked response was: "Can't read a word of this. But I know you answered correctly. A-."

A minus? Really?

As usual I digress.

Writers will use any excuse to put off writing. I know that. I am in the incoming president of SLACKER (The Society of Lazy As—d Cogitators Knowingly Evading ‘riting Anything). It’s a world-wide organization.

It's a great group. At least I think so. I have been tasked to write the by-laws. We'll find out how cool the group is if I ever get around to it.

Which begs the question. Is there such a thing as a square to it? And would you have trouble putting a “square to it” peg in a “round to it” hole?

Anyway, here's a perfect example of writers being uber-lazy. Recently the world was coming to an end.

At least that was what we thought the Mayans (whose civilization came to end a long time ago, but who am I to judge?) were telling us.

The world was clearly going to end on December 21. Maybe in fire, Maybe in ice. Maybe with a bang, maybe with a whimper. Maybe at 12:01 am, maybe at 2:43 pm. But it was coming to an end.

We knew that because the media was telling us over and over.

And over.

And over.

As usual, if something is on TV or on the "Inert-net" it must be true. If it wasn't why would smart, decent, well meaning folks like us "repost" it on Facebook for our 4,367 smart, decent, well meaning "friends" to read? Coincidence? I think not.

Speaking of which, the other day Liam used the "coincidence, I think not" rejoinder. I tried to convince him that what he was really saying was that he was "not thinking."

He got really annoyed. Coincidence, I think not!

(Every notice how when writers are avoiding getting to the point, they digress a lot?)

Anywhooo, about the only thing we didn't see in the run up to the Mayapocalypse was a descendant of the Mayans confirming it. Then again I don't watch Univision. Perhaps there was a Neo-Mayan there. Another digression!

Since writers love deadlines (and what is a drop deader deadline than the end of the world?), it seemed logical that it would create a outpouring of end of the world columns, including one from yours truly.

Nothing like getting the real "last word" in.

(Actually writers hate deadlines, deadlines make writers actually write. But, then again, if it wasn't for deadlines then we wouldn't actually be forced to write anything and we - natch - wouldn't get paid! Yet another digression!)

But, shockingly enough, there were only a handful "end of the world" columns. Even I didn’t write one.

Which must have come as a complete shock (as the non-ending of the world did to all those folks who paid a zillion rubles to sit in Stalin's Bunker in Russia), to members of my family who are so used to me always "getting in the last word" that they have given up trying.

No, despite being faced with the most significant "deadline" since Y2K (Remember that big "hoo haw?" All our computers were going to die and we were going to have to go back to communicating with IBM Selectrics and Whiteout!), I just sat on my two typing fingers - and one typing thumb - and wrote absolutely nothing.

Quelle Horreur! I was willing to let the end of the world come and not try to get in a last (snarky) word.

That's just how lazy I am!

Actually I was conserving my resources. Like all good writers I am already looking ahead to the next "end of times" deadline.

Newspaper Psychic (and "Christian Astrologer" ?!?!?) Jeane Dixon (who's world came to an end in 1997) predicted that the world would come to an end sometime between 2020 and 2037.

Now that's a deadline we can all live with.

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