Global Sexy-izing

by RAF KATIGBAK

Did I ever tell you about my weird tic? It’s one of those automatic involuntary physical movements that I have in reaction to a specific outside stimulus: kind of like yawning when some of us see someone else yawn, or getting that pukey feeling when you see a Cirque de Soleil clown performance.

I like to call it “The Glaze” and it looks like this: I start to hunch, my eyes get glassy and roll slightly backwards, and a slight hint of drool threatens to cascade over the precipice of my slacked mouth. Suddenly my mind wanders into some weird alpha wave zone, as if my brain hopped onto the Great Space Coaster with a one-way ticket to Crazyland.

In poker, they’d call it a tell, like if one guy throws his chips down with more force, it means he has a good hand. If you ever see me in the midst of the Glaze, that means I’m bored out of my skull.

There were very specific times when this would happen: one was at almost every family gathering where I would have to meet, and pretend to remember the names of, the various obscure second cousins twice removed in my traditionally super-extended Filipino family. The Glaze would also appear when I came into contact with any combination of the concepts “future” and “fiscal responsibility” in any parental lecture situation. Maybe it was my own problem coming to terms with my own mortality or the fact that I have the attention span of a gnat, but this is how it would usually go down:

What my parents would say: You know should really start saving and thinking about your future, you never know what’s going to happen. When your father and I...

What I hear: Wonk wonk wonk wonk—Raf, you’re hungry, go get a sandwich—wonk wonk wonk... (The Glaze)

I’m glad to say that I’m finally conquering the Glaze. The first step was to conquer my fear of the future. This was no small feat. The idea of getting old and taking up some traditionally trite old-person hobby like gardening, decorating my mailbox or spying on the neighbours was dreadful. But two words changed my mind and made me realize there is something worth looking forward to after all: global-frickin’-warming.

According to the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, global warming will eventually raise the Earth’s temperature, melt the ice caps and cause vast amounts of flooding in some areas, and devastating droughts in others. In 20 years, 100 million people will have no access to water and 10 million others will have to be relocated due to the flooding, hurricanes and other natural disasters.

Ultimately this can only mean one thing: Montreal will be the most awesomest tropical destination ever! That’s right, now we don’t need to book expensive trips down to the equator: Montreal will be the new Miami (and Miami will be the new Atlantis). The snowbirds will come flocking back to Montreal, which will help fill all the empty condos that this town is building, and the local ointment and buffet industry can finally cash in all those geriatric dollars they’d missed out on every winter.

Sure, tropical diseases like malaria will become rampant, threatening to wipe out millions, and the habitats of species like the polar bear might become so destroyed that they only exist in zoos, but just imagine being able to stroll down St-Laurent in a tank top and cut-offs ALL YEAR ROUND! You say global warming—I say global sexy-izing!

Heck, soon we’ll have to ban all petroleum products anyway, so why not bring those polar bears down here as an alternative mode of transportation? It’s better than the so-called “environmentally friendly” alternative transports those bleeding-heart liberals have proposed, like hybrid cars or that “Pogo-balls made from the skins of convicted criminals” idea...I mean, that’s ridiculous. Do you realize how many criminal hides it will take to furnish EVERY citizen with a Pogo ball? Let’s get serious, tree huggers!

There was a time when I didn’t care about preparing for the future. When, every time I saw one of those Freedom 55 commercials, my eyes glazed over. No longer. Now my eyes well up with tears of joy. The future is coming, and I can’t wait to retire.

Riff-Raff@sympatico.ca