I become a social pariah

I should have known better....It happened in San Francisco. I was dining with four delightful people when I inadvertently disclosed my deepest, most shameful secret.

I don't believe in global warming.

I couldn't have gotten a more shocked reaction if I had offered my grandmother a ham sandwich. Four shocked pairs of eyes. Four horrified gasps. A few feeble attempts to reason with me, then polite disbelief. No-one suggested burning me at the stake, but that was because they didn't want to disturb the ozone layer.

Can't I not believe in global warming? Is it the number one doctrine of the Church of Ecology?

It all reminds me of the last non-disaster that did not overtake us, namely the end of life as we know it which was supposed to occur at the millenium. One of my friends spent 1999 in a swivet because all the computers were going to go down on January 1, 2000. Her preparations for this gathered force as fall '99 approached.

Every second or third day Anne or her husband would withdraw the maximum amount allowed from their bank account, until they had a tidy sum under the mattress. Anne pleaded with her daughter and son-in-law to purchase a generator, and when they refused, she bought them one anyway.

On January 1, 2000, what happened? Nothing. Life went on, and so did the world's computers.

On January 2, 2000, Anne and her husband sheepishly returned $6,000 to their bank account.

I never heard what happened to the generator.