Mechanic Falls news

MECHANIC FALLS — Once upon a time in the 21st century people shopped in box stores with names like "Everything In Here, Except The Cashier, Costs a Dollar" and "Made in China, Including The Christmas Tree, Shop." Every day the masses would make pilgrimages to these stores because if they didn't the economy would collapse. The world at that time was gripped by the Tyranny of What If? What if the mortgage doesn't get paid? What if a loved one gets deployed? What if the neighbor next door who never comes out of the house is a terrorist? And horrors of all horrors, what if a child doesn't get accepted to the college of their choice and loses all hope of having a decent life which includes two cars, a big house, and an iphone?

Politicians, business leaders and billionaire arts and craft experts lied, cheated and stole on a regular basis. Some, like really good golfers, committed adultery, which later was labeled an addiction, so it's not really wrong.

Then, in 2010, a census was decreed. Everybody had to say how long they resided in their town, how many people lived in their house and if they had iphones. This made many people very angry because everyone knows it's not anyone's business, especially the government's, what kind of technology a person owns. Lucky for the census takers, who lived in fear of their lives, most people weren't home anyway because they were out shopping to keep the economy afloat. But then it got so bad many were forced to turn around and go home because there was no room for them in the parking lot.

In those days people thanked God for Friday because that meant no work for two days in a row. Fun and recreation, along with any leftover chores, were crammed into those two days in a breathless whirlwind before Monday rolled around again and people had to put their ax to the grindstone.

Like a certain group of people who lived two thousand years ago under the tyranny of corrupt politicians and the Roman boot, subjected to exorbitant taxes and a spontaneous census, we need a breakthrough of serious magnitude. A breakthrough that will set people free from worry and cynicism and The Run Around. We need a "Hark, the Herald Angels Sing" moment. We need Christmas for real.