Today, I was at work when the terror level got demoted from a level Orange to a level Yellow. I got a little email from CNN telling me that there had been an announcement. Someone in an office near mine must have gotten the same message. I heard her tell another person in the hallway. Other than that, it wasn’t mentioned. Life went on in much the same way that it always does.
It seems to me that there should be some kind of fanfare when we shimmy down the rainbow of terror, at least some acknowledgement… Sitting at my desk, I began to picture a drink cart, like the ones used on airplanes, being pushed from office to office, serving some kind of tropical fruit drink… maybe something with rum and coconut milk, definitely something with an umbrella in it. It just seemed to me as though a voice of an elated administrator should have come over the public address system telling us all to take to the streets in some kind of “sailor kissing a woman in Time Square” moment. Instead, there was nothing.
Everyone knows that the chances of this “Homeland Security Advisory System” getting it right are pretty slim. I don’t think that many people are disappointed by the fact, but we have gotten up the Red before and nothing has happened. As that’s the case, I don’t know how seriously anyone takes it. Perhaps, if we added an element of fun though… free Homeland Security cookies, a half-day off from work, a parade.
OK, here’s a related thought. How about bar specials that are tied to the color-coded Homeland Security Advisory System? How about drinks get less expensive based on how high the level is? The closer you get to Red (and thus death in a terrorist attack), the farther your beer-buying dollar will go. Is anyone doing this? This, I think, is my best idea ever. Much better than that thing with the nude women spelling out “No Bush in 04.”
OK, I have a lot more that I want to say about this, but I won’t bore you now. (No, I’ll wait until the weekend.) If you do have ideas for drink specials, or special drinks for each level of terror, let me know. We can work together on it and I can set up a special page somewhere clean, so that we can invite other people over to see it.
Goodnight my invisible little friends from the internet.
