8 Helpful Etiquette Tips for Judgment Day

So, like, Judgment Day is coming on May 21, and it's going to be frigging awesome for 2 percent of the world's population, who will be "raptured" up to God's bosom immediately—even in the middle of eating their soup or tying their shoes!

The rest will suffer lots of awful torments, but you are not among them, because if you are reading this you are clearly one of the saved. Why else would you have clicked on any link that contained "etiquette tips" for Judgment Day? The sinners are going to be far too busy lobbing turds at the ascending ankles of the saved to worry too much about color coordination and chewing with their mouths closed. They don't need "etiquette tips" while they dance under the lash of a vengeful God.

We rock, saved people! Woot.

I'm not sure the exclamation point is really necessary. After all, we are talking about the end of the world. A simple period  would carry sufficiently ominous weight. Is the proper spelling of judgement with an "e" or without? My style guide suggests the "e" is not required and is more commonly used in Britain. This is something I can wonder about until Saturday, when I don't gotta wonder about it no more. Cause I'll be in heaven, and maybe only four or five proofreaders will have made it there, too. But heaven is pretty big and I probably won't run into them.

"It's getting real close. It's really getting pretty awesome, when you think about it," said Harold Camping, the California evangelist who ran some numbers in the Bible that, dude, "blew his mind."

Camping predicted the end of the world in 1994, but he had eaten so many 'shrooms then that he got that dates wrong. This time he has them right, because he studied the Bible a little more fervently.

"I thought I was back in Cincinnati '87 at that awesome Dead show, when I ate the acid and saw a Dodge Dart turn into a jackrabbit. I ate this one burger at that show, and it became like real alarmingly conscious in my stomach. But no, I was reading the f'ing Bible and it was saying some weird shit! What?" said Camping. 

Camping plans to watch television during Judgment Day. Sure, that's what I'd do on the day the world starts to come to an end, too. Watch television. “The whole world will be weeping,” he said. “I think I will have my eyes glued to the TV.”

Camping, how can you have your eyes glued to the idiot box while you're ascending into heaven? Is it one of those little portable televisions?

But what if some of the saved ones are the very ones responsible for quality television programming, and in their absence we get automatic re-runs of Saved by the Bell and some of the Scooby-Doo cartoons that featured the execrable "Scrappy Doo"? I don't want to be watching that shit while my home sinks into a yawning chasm.

Anyway, there are some important etiquette tips to keep in mind while being raptured. Manners matter!

1. Practice your "O Face" quietly and in the privacy of your own home, until it is super convincing. God knows when you're faking it! Unless you're really good at faking it.

2. "How do you do, Lord?" is preferable to "Heya! Have we met? Where are the canapés?"

3. Right before the moment of rapture, it's probably not a good idea to say: "Hold on. I just want to step out for one more quick smoke."

4. If anyone who is not saved tries to grab at the hem of your garment as you are being transported up to Heaven, well, why not let them? Aiding and abetting stowaways is a nice Christian impulse. I will wager that having these stowaways in Heaven will make it a more amusing place. They might start up a comedy improvisation troupe. I think we could make a good movie about this called The Madcap Stowaways about a funny group of bums and drunks who make it into heaven during the rapture. I will need lots of money to make this film. Please see Tip # 5.

5. Give away all your money quickly before 5/21. I recommend giving it to me. However, put it in some kind of deferred escrow account, because I don't want to be like that rich guy for whom entering Heaven is harder than a camel passing through the eye of a needle, or a baby passing through the vagina of a woman.

6. Heaven has a lot of verdant, grassy areas. Spike heels are not recommended. Please note that May 21st is before Memorial Day, not after. No white shoes at the Rapture party.

7. When God is talking, try not to take out your Blackberry. Total instant smiting. God has an unlimited family plan, and that includes Jesus and that Holy Spirit person who is always lurking about. He can smite without getting dinged by a mobile services provider, because he is Most Awesome.

8. Don't get all giddy and giggly and dance about hugging random strangers just because you got picked to be one of the chosen. That's totally gay, and God doesn't like gay stuff.