BEWARE ROMAN NUMERAL MM

I have been having problems lately with a brake light on my car. I finally figured it out; Y2K Bug. McDonald's mixed up my order at the drive-thru last Wednesday... Y2K Bug. Can't find my keys... Y2K Bug. President gets off scott-free... Y2K Bug. I sent some letters across town and they took a week and a half... Well the post office still screwed that up, but yes, ladies and gentleman, every problem, enigma, puzzle and dilemma for the next 309 days can be blamed on the Y2K Bug.

To begin with, all the stupidity surrounding "Y2K" can be summed up in it's moniker of initials. Y2K is harder to verbally formulate than actually saying "year two thousand." You have progress when you replace the wordy "National Organization of Women" with NOW, (or replace them with anything) but replacing the smooth "year two thousand" with the awkward Y2K signifies just what kind of useless hype is about to follow.

And what hype it is. Not since "PMS" has an analogous grouping of letters set off such an earthquake of fear. When I first saw the initials "Y2K" I thought it was some new techno-organization of white supremacists. Sort of Mr. Spock meets David Duke. (I guess their white robes would have pointy ears to match the pointy head).

What Y2K really is, is the revenge of the nerds. The computer literate are finally flexing their psuedo-power. Former jocks, and prom queens everywhere are now at the mercy of the kid who thought the highlight of high school was learning how to validate a theorem. Where the nerdy were once embarrassed and insecure, now they smile as they have set off the paranoia of a world where blow dryers fall silent and jacuzzis bubble no more.

I envision a "Mad Max" type landscape where gas pumps rust in the chapped, dusty wind of the desert and hardly anyone drinks "Slim Fast" anymore. People will mostly stagger around, sunburned, mumbling, "Y2K," and "tea 4 two."

In this year of the Y2K, there should be some notable associations. Food of the new millennium: KFC. President of the new millennium: JFK. Rappers for the new millennium: Run DMC, DC Talk, Tupac Shakur. Baseball stats for the new millennium: era & rbi. Soft drink of the new millennium: RC Cola. Party designation of the new millennium: BYoB. Sandwich of the new millennium: BLT. Washed-up hunk for the new millennium: Magnum P.I. Airline of the new millennium: TWA. Poor taste tome-writer for the new millennium: I.P. Freely. Metropolis for the new millennium: NYC. Mountain for the new millennium: K2. Robot for the new millennium: R2D2. Wait line for the new millennium: DMV. Phone information for the new millennium: 411. I could make this list even longer but my EKG says I should take some R&R.

Much like all the current Sport's Illustrated models' talk show banter saying they were "so ugly" in high school, the Y2K Bug is a bunch of doofus, bogus, hype. A business problem to be watched, yes. The end of the world? I don't think so. But then again, don't trust me, just watch for more on CBS, NBC or CNN.

Billy Murphy -- 2/19/99