Five Days and Counting

Dear God,

Or is it six days and counting? Four? I can never get the hang of that calendar stuff, what with all of the includings and excludings. Anyway, there are a few--but not a whole bunch--of days left before we all learn whether Senator John McCain will become President John McCain, and whether our country can, indeed, hope to have 45 new nuclear power plants online by the year 2030.

I'm no good at this waiting game. I'm pacing the floor. I'm smoking cigarettes. I'm feeling contractions in the bowel area and lower back. I'm doing my breathing exercises and my wife has my bag packed for a middle-of-the-night trip to the hospital, just in case. This could all be intestinal gas, I know. But it could also be the birthing of a whole new world of nuclear possibility.

Are you feeling this way, too, Lord? Are others? If so, you and they may want to make use of my new, handy-dandy list …

What To Expect When You're Expecting
a Nuclear Renaissance

1. Excited? Yes! Go ahead and enjoy that exuberance while you can, because your sleep may be put on hold for the next 18 years. Make that 22 years. There are a lot of catastrophic environmental events that can happen with all of that uranium mining--not to mention the potential for surprises as 45 reactors power up. Before you know it, you'll be looking for places to dump waste, and I don't mean dirty diapers. So spend these next five days relaxing, writing in your "expecting" journal, listening to your favorite music, or staring aimlessly at the sky, your mind filled with wonder.
   
   
2. If you have the all too common Nesting Instinct, just make sure you don't climb up any tall ladders or try to move large pieces of furniture by yourself. Especially if you are in public relations, President McCain and his successors will need your support 10,000% over the next 22 years. Your sprained ankle may come at our nation's peril.
   
   
3. Make time for fun. In between writing press releases about the latest cooling tower accident, steam dryer crack, or failure of a spinoff due to market instability, watch a few movies. I like Boys Love Big Machines, but you might also want to download "Massive Propane Explosion" just for an idea of how fun things get when boom leads to boom leads to boom, boom, boom. Movie watching is a great way to comfort the overly excited child within and create happy, calm thoughts about the days to come.
   
   
4. If you have other nuclear power plants that you are already tending, your co-workers may need to hear from you that you have enough love for all of your corporate responsibilities.
   
   
5. Think of names! You'll need 45 of 'em, so feel free to use common ones like "Power-y Plant-y," "Really, Really Big Beulah," or "The Short-Sighted, Politically Expedient Idea that Destroyed the Western Hemisphere." But surely you can use your imagination. "Safe, Clean, and Reliable" comes to my mind for some reason. Any takers?
   
   
6. Remember, as desperately as you may want to refresh The Drudge Report all day long, no bankable information is likely to come from it until late at night on November 4, and sitting too close to your computer monitor may only expose you to unnecessary radiation. And none of us wants that to happen.
   

Amen,

Fake-Rob