“Armageddon will occur in the Autumn of 75” the 1968 publication warned.

My father reacted piously. Acreage was purchased. Then a dilapidated house paid for in cash and prepared for relocation. It was huge, brown and ugly. As our new Ark, with its bright orange door, floated through the center of town, I was exposed. I cried with embarrassment; I was Noah’s non-believing son.

I arrived home one day to find my father guiding a belching beast overloaded with timber pines. We would spend the next few years stacking chord upon chord to feed the Arks three fireplaces.

The last major emergency measure was the removal of the kitchens state-of-the-art cooking island; Like a Swiss Army Knife, it had everything and more. And in its place, a beautiful Empress Malleable.

Today it’s Winter’s Solstice. I pull an angel-food cake out of the Empress’s hellish belly. I deliver a slice of Sweet Revenge to my financially ruined father. As the mini pitchfork enters his mouth, I blasphemously whisper “I told you so”.