The end of days

"O-M-G. L-O-L. You are so funny."

Maybe Nostradamus predicted this. Maybe the Mayans were right. Maybe the first of the Seven Seals has been broken and the White Horseman is upon us. Maybe the great titan, Atlas, has grown tired and will toss Earth aside like that time you were helping your buddy move and he told you, "Man, I forgot to hit the ATM, would you mind grabbing some beer?" and you unshouldered the box labeled "collectibles" into the hot tub.

Whether the Frenchman's, Mayan's, Christian's, Greek's or any other definition of the apocalypse fits your beliefs, I might have overheard the beginning: "O-M-G. L-O-L. You are so funny."

The flight from Denver to Omaha on a Monday morning is usually filled with frequent business travelers and a few families heading home. It was in this few that I discovered the person that I have feared meeting. As I waited for the gate agent to start boarding the flight, not unexpectedly, several people began crowding the boarding area, assuming their tickets declaring "seating area 4" meant they would board before seating area 1. In the middle of this particular group, seemingly indifferent to her surroundings, was Kate.

Wearing skinny jeans, blue sunglasses and a pink Ramones t-shirt, Kate was the kind of person that owns a Justin Bieber poster and has no idea that Sheena is a punk rocker. She stood, surrounded by her parents and two younger brothers, talking on her bedazzled iphone and shifting her weight from one Ugg to the other. Teenage Kate spoke to her dad with perpetually rolling eyes and focused all of her attention on the person on the other end of her 3G connection. She impatiently stared at the ceiling and flicked her fingernails as the person on the other end told a story. When the tale ended, she responded, "O-M-G. L-O-L. You are so funny."

Kate neither said this ironically nor sarcastically. And I totally get the "O-M-G" thing. I've watched a total of 6 minutes and 23 seconds of Gossip Girl and know that this is sort of normal...infuriatingly annoying, but normal. However, she was genuinely amused by the story. Instead of giving the courtesy laugh ("hahahaha...'working hard or hardly working.' Funny every time, cubicle neighbor"), she said "L-O-L."  Is this necessary?

I understand abbreviation. I abbreviate my own name...awesomely. Many years ago, while working together at Cinco Ranch Golf Course, my friend Jay told me, "Brevity is key." He's right, but Kate is a nimrod. Is she over-abbreviating? Where do we draw the line?

Kate's conversation might just mark the beginning of the end. But maybe not. I think if we start under-abbreviating, it could counteract her atrocities.

Semicolon, close parenthesis.