The last laugh
a column by Chris Jungle

I subscribed to the "He who laughs last laughs best," philosophy back when I was stuck in the holds of junior high. Back then, I assumed it meant that whoever came up with the insult that could not be countered was the most powerful person in the world. While my interpretation of the last laugh has changed over the years, my search has continued on for who has the best chance of being the almighty last laugher. Finally, I think my quest is over, and while it is not clear cut if whom I name will actually chuckle in the end, I'm so confident that I'm going to call Las Vegas for odds. So, get ready to invest your stocks, educate your children, and change your lifestyle appropriately.

The winner and still champion of laughing last is--The Earth. Okay, that's a 'what' and not a 'who,' but it still counts. Nothing has been teased, torn, burned, cut, trampled, scraped, gouged, and ignored as much as the Earth, and the insults are still flying toward it. But if anything has a good comeback for all of the slurs it endures, the Earth leaves all others to shame. Unlike every disaster flick, very few people have been able to outrun, outcalculate, or dodge nature when it is retaliating. Ask the little Texas town that got a nice big chunk sucked up in a twister.

There may be some people who say "The Earth hasn't messed with me," but that is a misguided statement at best. Scientists have traced the Ebola virus and AIDS to rain forests in Africa. People who messed with rain forests by either cutting down trees or burning them to create room for industry have released a lot of disease that was formerly dormant in the forests. The Earth is pretty good at setting booby traps, and regardless of whether a person has come in direct contact with those diseases, everyone has had to endure the epidemics around them.

Many environmentalists complain that we're killing the Earth, but that's not exactly accurate. We are changing the world to where it will never be the same again, but we're not killing it. When forests are clear cut, copper mines are dug deeper, garbage gets dumped into water ways, nuclear weapons are tested by the French in the Pacific, the Earth will never be the same, but if anyone is going to be hurt by all of these actions, it's the human race.

The human race may be responsible for changing the face of Earth as we know it, but it won't kill the Earth. If you think the Chinese are the best at waiting out a storm, that ain't nothing compared to what the Earth can do. The Earth can wait out our entire existence. Some people ponder why dinosaurs lasted so long on Earth, but the answer is fairly simple. The dinosaurs didn't bother the Earth much, so it didn't bother them much. If humans stop messing with the Earth, it may let us live for millions of years without going extinct, but we're not exactly putting our best foot forward toward such an agreement.

On television when we hear about the mass destruction that certain floods, earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes, tsunamis, volcanoes, mud slides, avalanches, and wind storms does to the people in the areas, the coverage can last up to two weeks. When the damage just occurs to the Earth and no people (i.e. forest fires and toxic dumpings), the information rarely gets out of the regional newspapers, and even when it does, the stories are mostly of the one hundred word variety.

In the long run, all of this is of very little importance. Of all the things that can survive a nuclear holocaust, the Earth is number one on the list while humans are much further down. While we use up all of the water on this planet, the Earth will replenish itself with meteor snowballs and earthquakes pushing up ground water. Of course, it will probably happen after the Earth has made sure we're dead and never coming back.

There are a lot of people who could care less about the conservation of the Earth, and what's so funny about that is that the Earth feels the exact same way. When there's disease rampant throughout the world, no more water for people to drink, no more ozone layer to protect us from the sun, no more trees for creating oxygen (or paper for that matter), drastic temperature changes, everyone shooting off missiles in attempt to be number one at the end of civilization, and people are running through the streets screaming "Judgment Day" and "It's the end of the world," the Earth could care less about all of us. Worst of all, the Earth won't care if we no longer exist when it's chuckling and moving on to something else.

Chris Jungle wonders when his last name will become a story of mythical legend the children won't properly visualize.

return to the Shut up, I'm talking page
return to the LIES home page
return to the A&A home page