As I write this post, it is 12-12-12. Pretty significant if you’re a numbers person, I reckon. The next repetitive date occurs on 01-01-01 (short for January, 1, 2101). That’s a mere 89 years and 19 days away!  It’s pretty safe to say, I won’t see it, but lots of people living right this minute would be alive on that day…

Unless…

The world comes to an abrupt end on December, 21, 2012, as the Mayan calendar indicates.

The Mayans were pretty smart. They excelled at agriculture, pottery hieroglyphics, writing and mathematics. Maybe they knew something about the end of days that we don’t. I mean, really, how do we know?

Why did their calendar stop there, I wonder? Did their calendar maker wake up one morning with an epiphany and somehow know that there would be no more days after that date? Did he drop dead while taking his 15 minute break, smoking a cigarette and resting his weary mind and fingers by the water’s edge on the day he got to that particular date? Was there no one else to pick up the calendar making mantle? Did the calendar maker and the other noteworthy Mayans, sit around a fire one night, smoking some mind-altering drug, and scheme to play an outrageously hilarious practical joke on the Mayans of 2012?

I like to think they were practical jokers, myself. I bet they laughed about it all night long, getting high on peyote and munching on ancient twinkies.

Then again, maybe those Mayans really had an inside track to infinity. The end of days COULD happen on that day, right? OR, it could happen later this afternoon. Or, next year, or in a hundred years, or a thousand years, or never.  I think they knew that. And, that is why they stopped.

Well played, Mayans, well played.

This is the best Mayan Calendar joke ever, by Dan Piraro. Please visit his site to read about his take on it! (YES, Click right here!)