Competing Pessimism

It's been drab and gloomy all over Utah Valley for a couple of months, and then, *pop*! In the space of five minutes, there were suddenly flowers. The daffodils were opening in the flower beds on the southside of buildings. The apricot trees were blooming. Students were sitting on the lawn with jeans rolled up to their knees.

True to our pessimistic personalities, Steve (my good friend who shall remain nameless except for the Steve part) and I saw this as a sign of impending doom. "We're not going to get any apricots this year," Steve said to me. "Unless I put a giant parachute over the tree. And since that would totally depend on me to make it happen, it won't."

"It's already warming up and we're not even to April yet," I said. "We'll probably run completely out of water by July. Everything's going to dry up this summer, including me. Me and the fish will be flopping helplessly in small puddles of mud, eyes being burned out by the sun, gasping for air and hoping against hope for rain."

Other people were just enjoying the flowers. Silly, stupid people.