With just a few weeks left in the calendar year, one question has been coming up again and again: was 2016 the worst year ever? Some optimists have attempted to point out other bad years in the history of humankind, but 2016 just has it all. For example, the unrelenting slew of celebrity deaths, including, but not limited to: Prince, Alan Rickman, David Bowie, American democracy, Mohammed Ali, Gene Wilder, your hopes and dreams, Leonard Cohen, and Gary Marshall. These hurt us emotionally, but this year was despicable from all angles.
First of all, an anti-government militia occupied an Oregon wildlife refuge using fictitious constitutional arguments. Read that sentence a few times. You may have forgotten all about that, which further proves how terrible this trip around the sun has been. And let us not forget the long months we spent mourning the passing of a gorilla more loved in death than in life. Also, Bob Dylan is to receive the Nobel Prize for literature somehow and apparently will not show up to accept the award.
The presidential election was another thing on its own, and just when it seemed like it would be over, the American people discovered that their suffering was just beginning. Psychiatrists recommend destroying your TV and radio, and unsubscribing from all programs that deliver the news, except for Warde Focus, of course. Experts also say to invest in a good quality pair of soundproof headphones, and to acknowledge reality as little as possible. This election has been so bad it has even forced Mick McGarry, the most levelheaded, nonpartisan Town Councilman Hamden has ever had the pleasure of electing, to become a political Facebook posting monster. But at least our President elect is so smart he doesn’t even need intelligence briefings.
And this year was not the worst for just the U.S. The U.K. foolishly put power in the hands of the many and not the few, causing them to leave the European Union. The Zika virus spread across South America, the Caribbean, and into Florida. Earthquakes destroyed cities around the world, while locusts ruined crops in Argentina.
After more cases of violence, conflict, and natural disasters, let us brace ourselves for what is surely to come: ambiguous empty promises by the president of the United States, disappointing movie sequels, people who don’t know what they’re talking about yelling very loudly, more polar bears dying, and probably some more locusts or something.