2009 was a
Tiger of a year
Lori Borgman | Monday, Dec 28, 2009
Frank Sinatra may have crooned, “It was a very good year,” but Sinatra didn’t
live through 2009.
It was a
year pockmarked by job losses, pay cuts, furloughs, foreclosures and the federal
government spending like it couldn't find the off switch to the printing press.
It’s not like everybody was standing in an unemployment line. Couch potatoes
were a group with job security. The fundamental aeronautics program at NASA
recruited people to lounge in bed, watch movies and read books for 90 days
straight in order to study the effects of inactivity due to prolonged time in
space. The job paid participants $17,000 – good work if you can get it.
A grandmother in Vail, Col., had her work cut out for her when she thought
the family dog had wandered into her bedroom but it turned out to be a large
brown bear. Sally Rebehn wedged herself between the bed and the wall and began
screaming thinking her son, who was upstairs watching a Rockies baseball game,
might come to her aid. The team was in the midst of a rally and grandma was on
her own. She grabbed a pillow sham and hit the bear with it.
The bear fled to the kitchen and rummaged through cabinets and garbage,
sampling chili, ice cream and wings from a local barbecue. “The only thing we
know that it ate every last bit of was Moe’s Barbecue,” said Rebehn.
Barbecue made news in Indianapolis as well. Masked gunmen stormed Famous
Dave’s Barbecue at closing time and began rounding up staff to put them in the
walk-in cooler. Alert patrons tipped off other staff and the robbery quickly
fell apart. Gunmen fired shots and fled in a vehicle with an “In God We Trust
License Plate.” The gunmen were later arrested. Rumor is they are now agnostics.
Cyberspace lit up this year when North Korean Kim Jong-Il joined Twitter, a
social networking site. So far his posts have been limited to official
government news. No tweet yet on what the dictator is feeling or having for
dinner.
Sadly, it was a year of rampant infidelity -- Jon Gosselin, David Letterman,
South Carolina Governor John Sanford. The most stunning revelation was Tiger
Wood’s alleged Mistress #6, repeatedly identified as, “Cori Rist, Manhattan
clubgoer.” Who knew clubgoer was an occupation?
On the
topic of shallow, plastic buxom women, Barbie turned 50 this year. Mattel
scrapped a “Fifty is Nifty” national interview tour for Barbie due to hot
flashes, irritability and unpredictable mood swings.
A Florida woman having a bad day called 911 three times after a McDonald’s
ran out of chicken McNuggets. The woman was angry because McDonald’s offered her
something else off the menu instead of refunding her money. Police quoted her as
saying, "This is an emergency. If I would have known they didn't have McNuggets,
I wouldn't have given my money, and now she wants to give me a McDouble, but I
don't want one. This is an emergency!"
Yes dear, and so is a bad hair day, a hangnail and your shoes not matching
your purse, but somehow we move on and survive.
Here’s to surviving 2010 -- may your work be steady, your savings account
earn more than 1 percent, your McNuggets be in ample supply, your family kind
and your pillow shams never needed for self-defense.
