January 3, 2010
2010.
Out with the Zips and in with the Teens.
Yeah, I said Zips, not Aughts. I hate the term Aught for the first decade of a new century, even if it was popular at the turn of last century. This is the future; that is why it is Zip.
There was a lot of bad planning in the Zips. By the end, everyone and their mother’s brother’s cat was reassessing their Plan A and falling back on their Plan B or Plan C.
You know what plans are, right? Plan A is your game plan, your go to plan for life success. Plan B is your back-up plan, like those re-writable discs you should be copying your important files and pictures to in case your laptop crashes. Plan C is your contingency plan, in case Murphy’s Law somehow gets past Plan A and Plan B.
You may or may not be familiar with the lesser known plans. There’s Plan D, which is the dummy plan. It’s what you kind of make up on the fly because your Plan C failed and it usually isn’t too sophisticated. Then there is Plan F, which is failure. But since nobody plans for failure, it’s usually something that falls unexpectedly in your lap.
There is no Plan E, because E=empty, okay?
But there is another plan that you have. Everyone has it. I don’t care if you don’t plan anything in your life or if you really have planned everything from A to F. Everyone, and I mean even your mother’s brother’s cat, has a Plan Z.
Time magazine called the Zips the Decade from Hell. That’s a nice sentiment and all, but it wasn’t an accurate moniker. No, you’ll know Hell when you are deploying your Plan Z.
So what is Plan Z?
Plan Z is the plan of No Options.
When the Zombie Apocalypse arrives at your doorstep and one of those mindless puss bags bites your arm, whoever is with you is going to take you down with a machete. There are no other options.
That’s Plan Z.
When you mix a dog with a fish, you’re going to get something weird. When that happens, you better be warming up you Plan Z, okay?
I mean, I’m a pretty patient and tolerant person. I could probably handle a world with cycloptic dogs. But if you throw two-headed, sword-wielding, bat-winged apes in with that… well, there’s only so much I can take. I’m going to have to load up on ammo and get my Plan Z on.
So, while you may be steadily working your way to Plan F, keep in mind that there is a plan beyond that. Because if you have never imagined a world of No Options, then when that world arrives you might just become somebody else’s deftly executed Plan Z.
