The A-Holes of History: The Mayans

Happy end of the world, everyone! Oh wait…whaaaa? That DIDN’T happen? The world is still here? And we have to GO TO WORK today, and do normal the-world-continues-on kind of crap, like double checking our Master Card statements and stopping at the store on our way home from work to pick up more teriyaki sauce for dinner? And not THAT kind of teriyaki sauce. I hate the watery teriyaki sauce and I specifically asked for the thick teriyaki sauce, and WHY DON’T YOU EVER LISTEN TO ME?

Seriously, Mayans: WTF? Can’t you see that you’re tearing us apart?

As it turns out, the Mayans were A-holes of history. And it goes far beyond the whole “it’s the end of the world as we know it” thing. What’s that you say? That wasn’t the Mayans who said that? That was R.E.M.? I digress…

Either way it went down on Friday — whether a cataclysmic event hurled us all towards a collective and messy end (or not) — I can’t help but think the Mayans were going to come out of it looking like total jerks. As it turned out, they made us all consider our collective mortality, even if for only a fleeting moment, and forced the dorks at NASA into the limelight with their campaign to convince the masses that the doomsday crowd was relying on pseudo science.  That was kind of jerky (Except for the NASA part, because let’s be honest: NASA could really use some publicity these days).

And if it had ended? Well, then they would have really been A-holes, because they didn’t really do a very good job at convincing the majority. They could have been more specific about it all to make sure we REALLY knew we were about to meet our untimely end. Because seriously, if I knew the date of our collective upcoming demise, I would not have spent the past year saving my duckets and worrying about whether I should buy organic cheese, or whether or not I really should be eating a fourth chocolate croissant for breakfast; in the event of upcoming world-endery, the answer to that question is always — and I mean ALWAYS — yes.

 

 

 

 

And so either way, the Mayans come out of this with egg on their face. And as someone who used to work for a huge international PR agency, I’m comfortable going as fas as to say this is the largest public relations disaster for an ancient civilization in modern times. Ever.

What really puts the nail in the coffin of the whole “the Mayans were A-holes” argument isn’t even related to this most recent fiasco. Everyone makes mistakes, and I am a reasonable and edu-ma-cated individual. I’m not going to judge them on this one event alone!

But their A-holery isn’t limited to this modern beyond-the-grave tomfoolery. No. The Mayans were jerks even in ancient times. It seems as though they were really a rather angry people. And I can’t quite figure out why.

Have you been to Chitzen Itza (or, as my brother would say, Chicken Pizza)? Did you see the ball court, where they played ancient soccer with ancient human heads? Or something like that? Or the ceynote, in which they recently found human remains?

 

Seriously mayans? Why you gots to be like that?

And so that is why I nominate the Mayans to join the ranks of the Soviet army, and the Soviet army again, and the Taiwanese immigration officials in the Kaohsiung airport, to be my newest A-holes of history.