Partial Credit

I listen to a lot of AM radio, which is “Amplitude Modulation,” and I don’t know what that means, but not so much in the morning, if you know what I mean, as far as listening. One of the best things about AM radio, besides how it blinks out when you go under a bridge if you are in your car and the static and how other radio stuff bleeds in and out of whatever channel you are on and how it sounds like it’s coming from The Past, is guys like Harold Camping, who has a show on a network called “Family Radio,” which is pretty much everywhere, even on FM (Frequency Modulation, and I don’t know what that means either) and the Internet. On his Open Forum show Mr. Camping takes calls from people with questions about The Bible (the Christian one like you can still find in hotel rooms), and you can always hear him flipping the pages when somebody calls (I think he rocks the “King James” because that’s what they have on the Web site) and the caller goes like: “Mr. Camping, in Romans 6.23, it says ‘For the wages of sin is death,’ but shouldn’t it be the wages of sin ARE death, grammatically?” And then Mr. Camping (and the callers always call him stuff like “Mr. Camping” or “Brother Camping” or “Mister Harold”) will answer with some sorta long-winded thing involving Units of Measurement and how a minute in the Bible really equals an hour, or how nobody can accurately interpret the Bible because all the translations are innacurate, but he’s always got An Answer, and no matter how dopey or pissed off the caller is (he takes Hater calls, which is another reason to enjoy his program) he always croaks out “Thank you for calling, and sharing,” when he’s done with a call.

Most of the time he sounds like he just got up after an all-night cigarette bender to take questions and he’s getting ready to bust out a classic phlegm-hack-before-hitting-that-half-smoked-butt-left-over-from-last-night-you’re-feeling-around-for-on-the-nightstand, but I don’t even know if the guy ever even smoked a single cigarette in his life, except when you hear his voice it’s like, “whoa, Marlboro? Pall Mall? Chesterfield? Merit?” Is it even against the Bible to smoke? I mean, was smoking even invented when Jesus was around? Mister Harold could totally be a two-pack-a-day man, and guess what, it doesn’t matter what happens to his Corporeal Form, because he says the shit that is gonna jump off on May 21 will take care of Everything, and everybody who doesn’t Believe is gonna get wiped out, and all the people who do Believe are gonna experience “The Rapture,” which I can never read or hear without having that Blondie song go off in my head with Fab Five Freddie and stuff, so I’m totally doomed with my Unbelieving, and look, this Camping guy has been talking about this shit for years, and he’s moved the dates around a coupla times because of his “calculations” and whatever, and I fully expect him to have some sorta explanation about what happened when I tune in on Monday night on my way home from my job, and it’s all a lot of bullshit, hocus-pocus, etc., Religion is for Weak Minds that need a crutch, blah, blah, but still, hey, who knows, right? You don’t know.

I mean, you know, but this isn’t something you can prove either way until something Happens, right? If nothing happens you still don’t know, really, and that is how Religion works. Plus, Personally, I am a li’l bit scared, because I haven’t done any of the Requirements that will get me Raptured, you know? I have done Other stuff that puts me in the “Do Not Resuscitate” Category, immortal-soul-wise, so the best I could get would be an “Easter-Catholic” Rapturer if They would let me, just to see what’s gonna happen, if anything is gonna happen, which I don’t think it will, but still, you know? See how I keep ending up on both sides of this thing? This is my Problem. Didn’t Benjamin Franklin give money to all the Religions just in case? He wasn’t a dummy, he even got his face printed on the best money, the Hundred, and he never even was a President of The United States of America, you know? I wonder where he is now.

So Monday morning I am possibly gonna turn into some dust or suffer some sorta Punishment, and I gotta be OK with that, because I just can’t get it together enough to Believe Completely, you know? But then I think, fuck, if all of the people who Believe this shit are the only ones who are gonna be left, it’s gonna be totally boring wherever we all end up, I mean, think about all the Fun Things that wouldn’t be around if this whole thing pans out, and then if you somehow slide past the Inspection and find out it totally sucks and you want to leave?

Hey, what would be really cool would be if They got to go be all Perfect wherever that is, with their Rapture thing, and then left the rest of us here? I know, even less likely. All I’m saying is maybe there’s a Partial Credit? For example, I’m not paying my car insurance early because of this whole thing. It’s due on the 22nd, and I would normally pay it a coupla days ahead of time, but this time I’m gonna wait until after the 21st, just in case, you know? I mean, you don’t know.

Mr. Wrong can instruct you via many medias.