The most annus Annus Horribilis!

This year, this seemingly interminable parade of horror and absurdity that has been anno domini two thousand and twenty, is just about over and it's time for my annual look back at the year that was. Although this time it felt at best like a year that wasn't, and at worst a year we wish wasn't, but here we are.

Remember a year ago when we all thought 2020 wasn't going to be the
  worst year ever in the history of-oh shit, how many maskless idiots are going
to show up in Times Square and breathe all over each other? It's lots, isn't it?

Pictured: us randoms.

Every year for the past eleven years, this has been the post where I go over a list of people who have died in the past twelve months. I list only famous people because for real who cares about us randoms? And then I'd occasionally drop some abstract concept into the mix: "So long irony, we hardly knew ye" or sometimes I'd get political and put something like "democracy was clubbed to death this year by so and so." It's kind of a tradition at this point. Huh, I have a tradition, how 'bout that? 

Also, especially these last few years, I've done a running gag about how the next year couldn't possibly get any worse and now I can't help but wonder if all of this is my fault...

"Couldn't get any worse huh? Sounds like a challenge..."

-The Fates, evidently

Yeah, but were any of us truly 
surprised when his presidency ended
up killing hundreds of thousands?

Anyway, I'm not going to do that this year, so feel free to go back and read the old one. When every year managed to out-shitshow the one before and when not caring about us randoms became the official pandemic response, the whole thing became a lot less funny to me. To be clear, we're all going to miss Chadwick Boseman, Alex Trebek, Kobe Bryant, Diana Rigg, Grant Imahara, Ian Holm, Little Richard, Bonnie Pointer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg--oh, how we're going to miss Ruth Bader Ginsburg--I'm going to break with tradition.

Instead I'm going to suggest that we all agree that the last year--the last four years even--never happened. Which, I know it's impractical and the ramifications of everything that's happened will carry over into 2021 and beyond, but it's not impossible. Time is a construct and has no meaning beyond our need to measure it, so what the hell?

Are you just going to let some calendar tell you when to go to work
and when bills are due? Or are you going to take charge of your life?

Something, something, resources, doesn't
matter, we're here for quips and explosions.

It'll be like the Blip. You know, that thing from the Avengers: Endgame? Here, let me refresh those of you for whom, like me, those movies all run together. In it, half the population was wish-gloved out of existence by Josh Brolin because the writers love Malthus. But then five years later one of the Avengers, I forget which one, manages to steal the Infinity Gauntlet and wishes everyone back, but now everyone has to deal with 50% of the world being five years younger than...uh...

Look, I didn't like or understand the movie, but my point is if living through this has taught us anything it's that life is too short to care what others think or what the calendar says. So I say let's just take the mulligan, roll back whatever we want to roll back, shave a few years off our ages and start anew.

What I'm saying is that the only difference between us and
Time Lords is that we're reluctant to admit that time is nonsense.