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Brooks Peterson
Brooks Peterson's column is published Mondays. Brooks also sits on the Caller-Times editorial board and can be contacted at petersonb@caller.com
Monday, December 6, 1999
Here's the last, final, ultimate word on Y2K
I suspect there is a minor deity among the classical gods whose task it is to heed the entreaties of newscreatures who find themselves becalmed in their cluttered, airless cells, casting about for something - anything - to shovel into that great gaping vacancy on the Monday op-ed page that demands . . . grist!
We shall call him Scribblus, demigod of the bottom feeders of the Fourth Estate. When he can spare the time from badgering the serious gods, Zeus and those guys, for a corner office, Scribblus occasionally tosses one of us mortals a bone.
That's my theory, anyhow. There I was - actually, here I am - staring bleary-eyed at the computer screen and moaning softly over the utter want of anything even approaching a Topic.
Too early for the definitive Christmas column; gotta hold that in reserve. Quirky gift ideas for those tough-to-buy-for friends and relatives? Too grim even to think about. Harvest a few laughs from the just-concluded World Trade Organ-ization meeting Seattle? There's a winner.
That's when Scribblus, or one of his minions, whispered something in my ear.
"Y2K."
I was aghast: "Y2K? Y2K? What's left to say about Y2K? Does anybody want to read another word about Y2K?"
"Fresh angle," the reedy little voice rasped. Then there was a distinct click, like a connection being broken.
Fresh angle? Feverishly, I cast about for the significance of this oracular pronouncement. Was it even remotely possible that at this late date anything "fresh" remained to be said about Y2K?
Then I remembered: It had come via FedEx months earlier. A modest little white box bearing a black label with stark white lettering:
"Y2K Survival Kit."
(What follows is true. Seriously.)
Feverishly, I rummaged around in my compost heap - er, data retrieval system - and there it was. It contained:
? One roll of toilet paper, bearing the legend "Y2K is coming. Be prepared."
? One singularly unprepossessing wad of vaguely festive-looking crinkly red paper streamers.
? A handful of cryptic documents bearing a startling resemblance to . . . a press release?
Lessee . . . here we have a photo of a gaping, more or less humanoid countenance, stricken with sheer, stark terror. Below it, the question:
"What does Y2K really mean?"
Hey: Now we're getting somewhere. Finally, The Definitive Answer.
Flip the page, and there it: Y2K means . . . Yes2Kia.
Well, snow all over me and call me Mount Olympus: Who'd have thought?
An accompanying parchment coyly explains that Kia Motors America decided to latch onto Y2K to fuel a spring "sales event." It quotes Dick Macedo, Kia executive vice president of marketing and sales, to the effect that "The Y2K campaign is another example of our irreverence." One Fred Goldman, head man of the Goldberg Moser O'Neill Advertising, elaborated: "We've taken a broad and well publicized global event and turned it on its ear."
Translation: These guys are messing with our minds.
I have no idea whether the Y2K campaign was a winner. But I wonder at the wisdom of this sort of thing. Spur-of-the-moment irreverence is one thing - the sort of thing the deities, major and minor, may indulge so long as it doesn't get out of hand.
Calculated, self-congratulatory irreverence, however - that's another trip altogether.
Then again . . . what if there's more to this than GMO and Kia are letting on? A hidden, sinister significance? What if "Yes2Kia" is some sort of mantra or rallying cry for a weird New Age cult?
Time, as editorial writers are all too fond of saying, will tell. Meantime, let others chant, "Yes2Kia." I shall meet the new millennium in proper British iron, proudly shouting, "Yes2MGB."
Have a nice millennium.
Brooks Peterson
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