Let’s think about Hawaii for a minute. It’s winter here, gloomy and dirty and cold.
So let’s close our eyes and imagine the magic of the islands — beautiful waves, light breezes, soft sand, all of which is about to be turned into a knob of nuclear-fused glass.
That’s the scare people in Hawaii went through a short time ago. A public alert went out, erroneously telling everyone to brace for a missile attack.
I’m not sure what people in Hawaii did while they waited to be destroyed, but apparently it wasn’t worth a riot like an unpopular court verdict or a Super Bowl win brings.
It does, however, make me wonder. What would you do with the last 15 minutes before a nuclear weapon impacted the area where you live?
Warning • We’re only pretending here. Don’t call the police, run hysterically into traffic or start shooting annoying neighbors. I’m saying “just suppose.” Got it?
OK. Now imagine that the North Korean military was able to launch a nuclear missile without blowing itself to bits.
Imagine that this same missile is durable enough not to detonate if it strikes a seagull while speeding across the Pacific Ocean. It continues over California and is predicted to hit your general vicinity in the next 14 minutes and 42 seconds.
What would you do with the time you have left?
I have a rough idea of what I would do. Granted, a lot would depend on what I was doing and where I was at the time. Whether at the grocery store, in church, doing something stupid with Sonny or just kicking back at home, those factors would all influence slightly different responses.
For the sake of argument, let’s say I’m home when the sirens, cable TV and Oprah declare impending doom.
I’d spend at least the first 5 minutes cursing my own country’s government for not having the foresight to kill Kim Jong Un (making it look like an accident, of course) at any point during the past several years.
With billions of dollars at its disposal, how is it that the freaking CIA couldn’t have found some way to smuggle poisonous toilet paper into Kim’s john or jong? Hell, that’s how the agency killed Elvis.
Ten minutes and 7 seconds.
With all my venom spent, I would round up as many of my kids and grandkids as possible and tell them that I loved them and wanted to hug them while we watched a big fireworks show.
Eight minutes and 31 seconds.
I would tell my wife that I loved her and apologize to her for all the years she put up with the unmedicated me, including the times when I deliberately stopped taking them on road trips with Sonny.
Seven minutes and 2 seconds.
I’d look back over my life, probably regretting large segments of it, but treasuring the moments that brought me incredible joy — like holding my baby girls for the first time, getting married or putting a bunch of live ducks in the watch commander’s car.
Would I pray? Hell, no. I’m less than 5 minutes from meeting my creator face to face. He already knows what’s in my heart. Also, I’m not going to waste what little time I have left repenting. Not if being blown to atoms was part of some Grand Plan.
And if that Grand Plan allows some overfed Korean ground squirrel to fire a nuclear weapon that kills me and my innocent grandchildren, then God has some explaining to do.
One minute and 5 seconds.
Kiss my wife. Kiss my family. Tell them again how much I love them.
Eighteen seconds.
“You know,” I’d say to my wife. “I really wish the president and Congress were here right n-- .”
