Are we nearing the end?

Are we nearing the end?
                        

When my husband, Joe, and I started dating, I noticed pretty quickly he was a big fan of disaster movies. If there was a disaster movie on at the theater, we were there, and we’ve seen a lot of them since we first started dating way back in 1976.

One of the first ones I remember watching was “Airport 1977,” which I don’t remember the plot, but according to some information online, it’s about art thieves who hijack a 747, then the plane hits fog and crashes into the ocean, trapping the thieves and the passengers under 100 feet of water.

I know the idea of art thieves sounds kind of sophisticated, but really, if you steal a big, famous piece of art, what kind of market is there for it? Were planes so easy to hijack in 1977 that art thieves could do it? It’s hard to think of art thieves as cut-throat people, and if they knew so much about art, why weren’t they employed somewhere in the field where they could make an honest living?

These are the kinds of things that run through my head when I’m watching a movie and one of the reasons why it doesn’t make it fun for Joe to take me along. He is glad you’re not allowed to talk during movies at the theater. He’s stuck with me asking these thought-provoking questions at home though.

Also in 1977 was “Ants!” We didn’t have to leave the house to watch this made-for-TV movie that kept the disaster movie streak going when an old lakeside hotel that is to be sold to a seedy casino promoter and is located next to a construction site is attacked by an army of poisonous ants. The ants wreak havoc on the guests and resist all efforts to contain them as they crawl from floor to floor.

So many questions here. Do ants have a conscience? Were they really the bad guys or were they the heroes because who wants an unscrupulous business in their neighborhood anyway? No one will want to buy the hotel now.

I’m going to take a moment here to thank the miracles of internet research and the ability to ask your smart phone any question. They sure come to the rescue of my feeble memory of these old movies when I need them.

Then in 1978 it was “The Invasion of the Body Snatchers.” In this horror, sci-fi movie, strange seeds drift to earth from space, and then mysterious pods begin to grow and invade San Francisco, where they replicate the residents into emotionless automatons one body at a time.

Oh, I don’t even want to think about this, even though I have watched it with Joe and probably more than once.

In a 1979 movie, “Meteor,” the United States must join forces with the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics to destroy a gigantic asteroid heading straight for Earth.

So many ways disaster can strike. If you are not reading this column, you’ll know they were wrong about that large asteroid, known as (7482) 1994 PC, which was going to safely pass by Earth on Jan. 18, 2022.

A favorite book topic of many — not including me — is the end of civilization stories. This is where civilization collapses and it’s every man and women for themselves, especially when it comes to stocking up on toilet paper.

Sometimes I am pretty naive. I hate to admit I really jinxed us right into the pandemic a few years ago when Joe and I were discussing yet another civilization collapse book he was reading. He wanted to finish the series, but they just keep writing them.

“You should quit reading them. They are a waste of time because if a disaster strikes, everyone will pull together to help everyone else, and we will be OK,” I said.

Then the COVID-pocalypse hit, and I’m eating my words now.

Oh look, it’s time to go watch “The Walking Dead,” a television show that features a pandemic that turns people into flesh-eating zombies. Maybe it will end better.


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