In remembrance of The Year 2019, the latest in a long line of crude chalk marks on the wall of humanity’s self-inflicted prison, who will be laid to rest this evening.
2019, like Jeffrey Epstein, did not kill itself.
Among its many accomplishments, 2019 will be remembered for propping up the idea that celebrities buying their kids’ way into college is a bigger scandal than the actual cost of tuition. The year was also notable for increasingly devastating hurricanes, mining companies ripping up the ocean floor for diamonds nobody needs, the Amazon rainforest and Notre Dame Cathedral both burning down (and the world’s powers that be only being interested in saving one of them), and Game of Thrones culminating in a thrilling all-hands meeting in Conference Room 4E. 2019 was particularly proud of being the year that credible evidence of UFOs got less media attention than feuds between Meghan Markle and people with names like Bromley Biffington and Egglesby Togglefart.
In its spare time, 2019 enjoyed killing off the presidential campaigns of several Democratic contenders and bequeathing to its successor 2020 a roster of candidates that includes the human equivalent of clapping on 1 and 3 and the first VHS copy of Wild Hogs to serve as Vice President. Like its ancestor 1868, 2019 will be remembered for impeaching a U.S. President who was only passingly familiar with indoor plumbing.
Citizens of the world will remember 2019 for its lasting contributions to society, which include government use of facial recognition to track dissidents and headbands that monitor schoolchildren’s brain activity, as well as Big Data monitoring your every move so that your employer can Moneyball your poop. 2019 also produced the first ever picture of a black hole, but it was honestly sort of fuzzy and could not even be made into a GIF.
2019 personally oversaw the deaths of Toni Morrison, Eddie Money, I.M. Pei, the idea that the Mueller Report would matter, any reason to use the top half of the flagpole, John Paul Stevens, 12.5 billion tons of Greenland ice in a single day, Deadspin, and an insufficient number of Baby Boomers to make any sort of real difference in the next election.
Loved ones surviving 2019 include resurgent measles, gender-reveal videos, people backing into parking spaces, hail, deep fakes, plane crashes, hiccups, dishes that cannot go in the dishwasher, Mark Zuckerberg’s haircut, ticks, and people that pronounce it “bolth.”