Holding Off the Apocalpyse

For one brief shining moment, I was Master of the World.

I had done what  few (if any) had ever done in Mr. Wood's Senior Political Science class.  I had managed to stymie the big game's instinct to end in an apocalyptic nuclear conflagration.

Mr. Wood's class, the very pinnacle of the Bridgeport High School's Social Studies program, ended in a massive game, breaking the students up into different countries, some more powerful than others, all competing with each other, operating under scenarios that simulated the cold war.  The game almost always ended in a huge war, resulting in worldwide nuclear annihilation.  I think it was in part designed to teach us how close we lived on the brink.  I think most of the time students just wanted to see things go boom.

I had heard about this game years in advance, and it was  perhaps the single greatest thing I was looking forward to in my academic career.  But I didn't just want to play the game.  I wanted to be a legend.  I wanted to be in the game where war was prevented, a game that ended in unity and cooperation, not division and destruction.

I prepped for this, as a sophomore, with a World War One game that I had participated in as part of Mr. Eurich's World History class.  This was a designed to show how easily the world descended into World War One, and how difficult that would be to prevent.  I played a diplomat in the neutral country of Switzerland, and somehow used that to prevent World War one from taking place.  This success gave me high hopes for Mr. Wood's big game.

The country assignments were fairly random.  I found myself as part of a three person team, heading the most powerful country in the entire game, the rough equivalent of the United States.  Jimmy Schauman was President of the country, and I was Vice President/Diplomat.  As the game's Henry Kissinger, I did everything I could to keep the world at peace.

Fortunately for me, the number two power (the Soviet Union counterpart) was run by a team that included my best friend, Evans Bentley, and one of our brightest and best, Kerry Conrad.  Kerry was at or near the top of our class, a brilliant speaker, and a Jehovah's Witness.  She was a natural ally in wanting to circumvent the destructive impulse of the game.

Even with that, it was difficult to keep the lid on things.  There were other countries antsy to see something happen, and the two Jims that were in my country (Jimmy Schauman and James Fisher) could check and out-vote me within my own country.  I could still feel the drumbeat of the apocalypse getting louder and louder,

Then one day, I took advantage of a loophole in the game's rules.  Jimmy Schauman was out that day, and it allowed me to act as President of our country.  As President, I set up a meeting with the other large power, and we negotiated and voted on a merger, combining our two countries on a four to one vote.  The two Jims were livid, and so was Mr. Woods, but in the context of the rules they had set up, there was nothing they could do about it.  I had combined and was in control of the two largest powers of the game, with enough firepower to eliminate any possibility of a nuclear end.

This sense of euphoria only lasted a day or two.  I got caught by another rule loophole.  I was so hyper about what I had done, that I had failed to do a routine task, of setting your country's defenses when class started, and presenting it to the class instructor.  Mr. Woods gleefully came to me, with the two Jim's, and informed me that I had failed to do the basic paperwork, and that I had been voted out and was now banished from the game.  The two Jims retook my county, and voided the merger.

The big game I had been looking forward to all my life, and I was now sitting on the sidelines.  I did try to advise Kerry's country, but it was too little too late.  The game descended into the nuclear fires it always ended in.  I held it off as long as I could, but in the end I failed.

It is ironic that what tripped me up was some minor bookkeeping, given the profession I have wandered into.  I am not naturally a highly organized person.  I like to think outside of the box.  I can  concentrate on the paperwork, but it is not normal for me, and it takes a lot out of me to do so.  It may be one of the reasons that being a CPA has been such an exhausting career for me, trying to make sure I haven't forgotten the little detail that would cause a Mr. Woods to come and take it all away from me.

But I work hard every day, and I fight to stave off the bookkeeping apocalypse.  I've learned to operate within the rules, and use those rules to the benefit of the client and society.  Still, the fear lives in me every day that I will forget something, some little quirk that I should have done but didn't.  So far I have been successful, but I do look forward to the day when I can voluntarily watch it all from the sidelines, and concentrate instead on writing, diplomacy and magic.

That's all any of us can do.  Strive to hold off the apocalypse, one day at a time.