Y2 OK

By TAD BARTIMUS

Most days, the sun rises, the sun sets, and nothing much happens. Then comes New Year's Eve. At my house, the psychological impact of a blank calendar results in frenzied drawer cleaning, desk clearing and diet-book reading. Even in ordinary middle-of-the-decade years I pause to reflect on what's been, who's come and who's gone in that fleeting space between January and December.

On this New Year's Eve, just 365 days until the New Millennium, we're into uncharted psychic territory. As my old hippie friend says, "Heavy, man, heavy."

Doomsayers vow not to fly after 11:59 p.m., on December 31, 1999, and are hoarding canned tuna fish (left over from bomb shelter days?)

Maybe it's the hype, maybe it's the alignment of the planets, maybe it's because I want it to be so, but 1999 feels different already. I'm leaning into it, like a ski jumper soaring off an Olympic hill. Ever since we entered the '90s, pundits have been trying to predict the future for the next thousand years. My instincts tell me life just over the horizon is full of possibilities. Trouble is, the media clatter all around me warns that my bliss is ignorance and I'd better wise up fast.

Come January 1, 2000, say many so-called experts, I may not be able to shop for food, drive my car, turn on a light, cash my paycheck or even take a bath because of the "Y2K bug." This is not your ordinary cockroach; more like a swarm of electronic locusts out to destroy the computer age on which we're now so dependent.

Snail mail and e-mail overflow with warnings that when the clock rolls over on those three zeros our cursors won't know what it means. Doomsayers vow not to fly after 11:59 p.m., on December 31, 1999, and are hoarding canned tuna fish (left over from bomb shelter days?). One friend installed solar panels on his suburban roof because he's convinced the power grid will fail. Another is seriously considering hiding money under a mattress. Chicken Little would feel right at home with this crowd.

On the other end of the teeter-totter, serious fellows in serious suits talk endlessly about how banks are spending billions to make sure that extra zero (0!) doesn't crash the world's financial system. Bureaucrats, from Al Gore on down, assure us "we're on top of it." There's even a free www.Year2000.com website where, for additional fees, you can immerse yourself in millenium minutiae (why don't I ever think of ways to make money like that?). Presumably the site is being "zero-proofed."

Y2Kers fall into tortoise-and-hare camps: those hunkering down in hidey-holes preparing for chaos and those badgering their travel agents to find them the best seat in the world to watch it. When the Y2K bug bites, it would be more fun ushering in the New Millennium by swilling champagne and dancing under the Eiffel Tower than eating tuna out of a can and huddling under a tarp. But if you don't live under the Eiffel Tower you might have a problem getting home, so better tuck some tuna in your tuxedo pocket, just in case.

I haven't decided yet whether to be a tortoise or a hare. After all, when Apollo 13 broke down in space the astronauts got themselves home with the help of a dirty sock and a rubber band, so I never underestimate human ingenuity. I'm sure the same folks who transfer me to the wrong voice mail, leave off a number on my new credit card and mis-program my Internet software are dealing with the extra zero problem in their spare time.

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