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Opinion

Commentary: Some perks of being left behind after the Rapture

Mike Hendricks - The Kansas City Star

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May 20, 2011 11:47 AM

One good thing if the Rapture comes Saturday: Getting a table at the IHOP ought to be easier Sunday mornings from here on, don’t you think?

The job market, too, should loosen up once the chosen few are called home. Though if Howard Camping and his followers are right, your own personal recovery would be short-lived should you be left behind and get that long-sought-after job. Five months from Saturday, the whole world supposedly comes to an end.

But hey, that’s five months with full benefits, which is better than going without coverage or making COBRA payments in the final days of the Great Tribulation.

See, that’s been my whole approach on the off chance that tomorrow brings the day of reckoning.

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Cheer up! Be positive while awaiting the crack of doom the tribunal of penance the court of conscience ... I can go on like that for an eternity, as a lot of synonyms have built up over the millennia.

My personal favorite is not fit for a family newspaper, unfortunately. But check back with me on Sunday. Standards may then be subject to change.

No doubt you have your own end times to-do list. Mine starts with no more checks to the insurance company — life, auto, health, all of it. And it ends with barbecue for breakfast whenever possible.

I’m still filling in the rest because there’s no way that someone in my line of work — and me, in particular — has a ticket for that first flight. I’ll be sticking around with the rest of you sinners until the bitter end.

Lots of scenarios are out there, and some are flat wrong. For example, some group is proposing on the Internet that, post-Rapture, we all go out and collect the cars, big-screen TVs and other loot left behind by the raptured millions.

Anyone who believes that hasn’t read the Bible. Particularly the part where Jesus teaches that “it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God.”

Which says to me that most of the stuff left behind wouldn’t bring 10 bucks at a yard sale. Blessed are the poor. Everyone with dough, from the Wall Street speculators to the television preachers wearing diamond pinkie rings, is in the same boat as the rest of us, no matter how many hosannas they have to their name.

Likewise, some are suggesting that one benefit of the Rapture would be a welcome scarcity of the sanctimonious nags on the religious right and other windbags.

Yet Jesus probably would have as much use for the Pharisees of today as the prigs who plotted against him 2,000 years ago.

It’s like a friend of mine said on Facebook the other day:

“I’m looking forward to giggling about who else is still here.”

And seeing the surprise on all those sad faces.

On Fox News.

ABOUT THE WRITER

Mike Hendricks is a columnist for the Kansas City Star. He can be contacted by email at mhendricks@kcstar.com.

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