Ok, So It's The End Of The World

The Sci Fi Channel recently produced a TV special, called "Countdown To Doomsday" in which experts consider ten really crappy ways human civilization might come to an end. Possibilities include invasion by aliens (I think they mean the Sigourney Weaver-eating kind, not so much the housekeeping staff from the Red Roof Inn),  getting into a cosmic fender-bender with an uninsured giant meteorite (our planet doesn't have air bags), or becoming slaves to a generation of ruthless futuristic killer robots - not including, presumably, the one who is currently the Governator of California.

Despite the Sci Fi Channel's credentials as an unimpeachable scholarly institution, and even though the possibilities they present are pretty darned scary, I think they've overlooked one of the most significant dangers facing our world today -

SCLOC!

For those of you who are not up to date on the latest panic-inducing acronyms, SCLOC (pronounced, "SCLOC") stands for Sudden Catastrophic Loss of Cellular, and represents one of the deepest-held fears of the twenty-first century world.

Ok, now granted that SCLOC might not seem as unpleasant as being pureed for lunch by a seven-foot-tall carnivorous avocado from Rigel 9, but appearances can be deceiving. Just picture the following nightmare scenario:

You're driving down the street, using your cell phone to make sure that your sister is current on all the critical details on your last dental check-up. Everything seems perfectly normal - birds are singing, traffic is flowing, and pedestrians are leaping to relative safety as you pass by.

At that moment, somewhere near Encino, California, a cellular technician is taking an unauthorized lunch break at his workstation. Distracted because he is also downloading the new Lindsay Lohan screen saver for his pc, he accidentally knocks his cup of gazpacho into the main control terminal, causing a cascading power failure that takes down the entire North American Cellular Grid.

Back in your car, your phone connection suddenly goes dead. Steering with your knees, you redial. Nothing. You check all your phone's indicators, looking for any way to explain the malfunction - the battery shows more than half-charged; the little antenna-picture thingy shows four bars; you paid the bill last Tuesday, and you're really sure the check should have cleared before the 15th.

You look up to see a motorist coming from the opposite direction, shaking his phone and banging it on the steering wheel. He swerves and plunges into a ravine, his car in flames, and as he disappears from view he shouts into his Bluetooth headset, "Can you hear me? Bill? Hello? HELLOOOOOOOOOooooooo?"

As you try rebooting your phone, your car veers off the road and into the crowded main hallway of a high school. Kids shouting the names of friends into their own inert phones and frantically trying to retrieve the pictures they took at Caitlin's party last weekend flash past your windows. The assistant principal disappears beneath your onrushing car, typing his frantic last words into his Blackberry - a message that will never be delivered.

Abandoning your vehicle in the lunch room under a pile of Salisbury steaks, you stagger back out into the street, tenderly cradling your lifeless cell phone. Distant explosions and screams of, "You're breaking up! Hello?" assault your ears. At that moment you realize that the unthinkable has happened - the entire cell phone infrastructure has collapsed!

Falling to your knees you look skyward, overcome by the stark realization that your sister may not find out about your abscessed molar until you get home and call her on the land line.

May heaven help us all!

Copyright © 2006, Michael Ball

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