The Mercy Rule should be invoked.

You know when a baseball game is getting out of hand with one team holding an 11-0 lead? I mean, there is no mystery as to whom will win the game so, let’s call it a day and move on.

Maybe tomorrow will be better.

I think it’s time that we start applying the Mercy Rule to 2020.

From its inception, 2020 has been disappointing. I am not even considering politics at this point. It seems that from the very moment the ball fell in Times Square, upon the last note of Auld Lang Syne, 2020 was just a techno-enhanced version of 1968.

COVID, the collapse of the US economy, George Floyd, and the other African Americans who fell victim to racism all have derailed the country as we approach the third decade of the twenty-first century.

It’s time to reboot the system.

I propose that at the stroke of midnight, September 1st, we fast forward to 2021.
I realize it’s more psychological than astronomical, but pretending to put an early end to 2020 is called for under our present conditions.

In addition to all of these items we have been dealing with all year, a tropical storm wreaks havoc on the NYC metropolitan area…but don’t mention global warming to the buffoons who mock science.

Now, zooming ( if I may use the word in a non-video sharing sense) right to 2021 is an excellent idea, but it might also be of value to zoom directly to December.

They keep promising a vaccine by the end of the year, so maybe skipping ahead a few months might be just the trick to get us out of our houses so that we could be eating a pizza in a pizza parlor with no fear of anything except maybe a little agita?

Avoiding September, October, and November would also put an end to the whole back to school thing. Let’s just pass GO and straight to Free Parking for a Christmas Vacation.

The parallels of this year to 1968 evoke stark memories and a divided country that remained that way except for a brief time in September 2001.

I was eighteen in 1968, and I stayed home on New Year’s Eve.

There was nothing to celebrate.

Watching TV with my mother as Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadiens usher in 1969, I remember saying to my mother, “Thank God this year’s over!” I have a feeling we all might be saying that this year.

I wonder if you can download Guy Lombardo on iTunes?