A Lighter Look at 2014: From Disco Kroger to CentrePit and everything in between
by Brian S. Powers
January 1st – The world celebrates making it to yet another year by the skin of its teeth, then collectively groans upon realizing there were still be ten more months of midterm campaign advertisements.
February 2nd – Punxsutawney Phil, mystical rodent oracle of the weather, in a drunken stupor sees at least three of his own shadow and accurately predicts what seems like six more months of brutal winter. He is later captured, killed and roasted over an open fire by Kentuckians angry over snow in mid-April.
March 15th – The once-proud Disco Kroger on Euclid Avenue closes its doors, to be demolished. Euclid Avenue stoners are dealt the biggest setback in modern history as they collectively search for a route to the Romany Road Kroger to buy Funyuns at 2 am. The replacement for Disco Kroger will be popularly known as “Supervillain Fortress Kroger” — or Fort Kroger for short — due to its extensive underground lair, rooftop parking, moat filled with sharks and an easily-identifiable self-destruct button.
March 17th – Blasting begins on the block downtown colloquially known as “CentrePointe.” Speculation runs rampant as to what will become of the area as a giant hole begins to take shape, although the smart money is on a giant community swimming pool, complete with a lazy river for tubing and a giant pirate ship in the kiddie area.
April 7th – The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition, adds “March Madness” to its ever-expanding catalogue after psychiatric professionals see severe and traumatic mental reactions from a discrete population in the central region of Kentucky. Symptoms include a sudden and overwhelming urge to commit arson with household furniture, excessive consumption of alcohol and severe depression following a loss to Connecticut.
April 16th – Lawmakers fail to approve bonding for a plan that would renovate and expand Rupp Arena and the surrounding area. To be fair, the plan called for a $42 million, 30 ft. high solid platinum statue of John Calipari and critics found this to be excessive. Plans are being drawn up in which the statue is only 20 feet tall and is made out of more affordable gold instead.
April 24th – Lyft, a popular app-based ridesharing service, debuts in Lexington when a multitude of cars sporting pink mustaches takes to the streets.
June – Work begins on the old National Bank Building to convert it into the upscale 21c hotel. Confusion sets in when an architect on the project initially misreads the plans as being for a “21cc” hotel and the team spends two weeks scrambling to convert cubic centimeters into imperial measurements.
June – Rumors abound that at least one street in downtown will be construction-free and open in time for the holiday celebrations downtown. Rumors quickly quashed.
July 4th – The Helix garage in downtown Lexington debuts a new facade with computer-controlled LED lights. A heated debate soon ensues between tech fetishists who dismiss the display as “lower resolution than a 2007 smartphone” and hipsters who say the LEDs are nice but should be replaced with incandescent bulbs on switches because “everyone knows analog is better than digital.”
July 13th – The World Cup ends with some country on some other continent winning it. We’re assuming it was some sort of sporting event. Kentuckians begin wondering aloud how soon until basketball season.
October 27th – Foxy Shazam, a Cincinnati, Ohio-based band, breaks up. You’ve probably never heard of them, but the author, for one, is devastated.
November 2nd – Senator Mitch McConnell ekes out a mere 15-point victory over rookie upstart Alison Lundergan Grimes in a race for the U.S. Senate seat from Kentucky. Both candidates missed out on a great opportunity, however – according to SDR Tactical Robots, the $78 million that the candidates spent beating each other senseless could’ve been better spent on buying an army of over a thousand tactical armed robots with which to do battle for the open Senate seat.
December 31st – A drunken UK student wanders into the soon-to-open Supervillain Fortress Kroger on Euclid, accidentally presses the easily-identifiable self-destruct button and sets off a chain reaction that destroys all life on Earth. The most difficult part of the tragedy is never discovering what seed Kentucky receives in the NCAA 2015 tournament bracket.
This article also appears on pages 9 of the December 2014 print edition of Ace.
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