By Tim Sanders

A couple of weeks ago Scott Wright sent me an email containing a list of U.S. statistics from the year 1907. I believe he wanted me to verify the information, but since I was very young in 1907, I couldn’t be of much help. Regardless, here are a few examples:

The average U.S. life expectancy was 47 years.

Only 14 percent of U.S. homes had a bathtub.

There were only 8,000 cars in the U.S. and only 144 miles of paved roads.

A three-minute call from Denver to New York City cost $11.

The average U.S. worker made between $200 and $400 per year.

Eggs cost 14 cents a dozen, and coffee was 15 cents a pound.

Most women washed their hair once a month, and used Borax or egg yolks for shampoo.

2 out of every 10 U.S. adults couldn’t read or write!!!

There were about 230 reported murders in the entire U.S.!!!!!

The email ended as follows:

Now I sent this to you and others all over the U.S., possibly the world, in a matter of seconds.!!!!!!!!!

PASS THIS ALONG!!!!! Just try to imagine what it may be like in another 100 years.!!!!!!! IT STAGGERS THE MIND!!!!!!!!!

I read the century-old statistics, and sat for a time, thinking deep thoughts. I finally concluded that the real meaning, the true significance of those statistics was that my outlook on life, and my general disposition, would improve dramatically if I were to check my email only once every six months instead of daily.

Of course there are other lessons to be learned from that informative email. For one thing, there is no such thing as too many exclamation points. If you are a student who will be writing essays in the Fall, remember that you can fill up half a page with exclamation points, and if they are strategically placed, it will look as though you’ve written much more than you’ve actually written. In 1966, for example, I rounded out a rather skimpy report on "Wuthering Heights" by following the simple, declarative sentence "The dark, brooding Heathcliff lost his dark, brooding socks in the bog" with one-hundred-and-eighty-seven exclamation points. Later, the professor took me aside and told me that without those exclamation points my report would have been entirely worthless. (Another hint: Writing out "one-hundred-and-eighty-seven" takes up much more space than simply using the numerals 1-8-7.)

As to the final comment that trying to imagine what life might be like in another 100 years "staggers the mind," I would certainly not have used nine exclamation points for that pointless exclamation. My mind staggers all by itself. Regularly. Four exclamation points would have been sufficient.

Which doesn’t mean that I can’t imagine what life will be like in another 100 years. I can.

People were imagining what life would be like in 50 years when I was a kid, and their predictions were, basically, just plain goofy. I remember watching a newsreel where a dorky scientific type in horn-rimmed glasses described life in the early 21st Century. This junior Nostradamus in a lab coat confidently assured a bunch of innocent school kids that in 50 years we’d all have our very own private helicopters parked in the driveway. Dad, Mom, Granny–everybody would have his or her own chopper. For shorter trips, say to get groceries downtown, we’d have conveyor belt type sidewalks which would transport us effortlessly to the Piggly Wiggly and back. And our grocery bags would be tiny little things, because we’d get all the nutritional value we needed from just one minuscule pill, filled with our maximum daily requirement of protein, vitamins, minerals, and pine tar. No one would be overweight, and those huge weekly $15 grocery bills would be relics of a bygone era. Oh yeah, and we’d be able, by the dawn of the year 2000, to dry clean our clothes in nanoseconds, while wearing them. Robotic lawnmowers, operated by a remote control device the size of a suitcase with an eight-foot antenna, would trim our lawns while we watched from our patios. And each and every town library would have a gymnasium-sized room set aside for the community Univac computer, which would be able to store hundreds of thousands of pieces of information on special reels of tape no bigger than truck tires.

There was more, of course, depending on which newsreel you watched, and just thinking about it today indeed staggers the mind.

So while my mind is staggering around in its little cubicle, here are some of my predictions about life in the year 2107:

163-YEAR-OLD MICK JAGGER, accompanied by his backup band, the Fruit Flies, will provide halftime entertainment at Super Bowl CXLI. At one point he’ll actually appear to raise an eyebrow and sneer derisively at the crowd, although attending physicians will later say it was only gas.

IN THAT GAME, the Teheran Sind Bats will humiliate the Tibetan Wild Yaks by a score of 3-0. In festive post-game ceremonies, the entire Teheran team will behead the Tibetan quarterback, whose "happy feet" will buy him only a few precious moments.

A RHESUS MONKEY with a law degree will be elected to the Vermont House of Representatives.

AND SPEAKING OF monkeys, the state of Massachusetts will again redefine marriage, this time as between "any consenting man or woman or transgender individual and any other primate, including but not restricted to chimpanzees, orangutans, or members of the U.S. Congress."

2 PERCENT of all Americans will be literate. Congress will herald this as "a gud stap in the write dureckshun."

A DOZEN EGGS will cost approximately $3,000, due to the unionization of farm hens by the PETA-sponsored National Poultry Party.

EATING STEAK will be punishable as a "hate crime."

CHIHUAHUAS will be added to the endangered species list in Florida.

THERE WILL BE no long distance calls from Denver to New York City, because the Big Apple will be submerged due to the phenomenon known as "Global Wetting" or "Global Dampness."

IN A DESPERATE EFFORT to reduce the burgeoning U.S. murder rate, legislators will decriminalize murder and define it as "unilateral involuntary life adjustment." Much of this legislation will be the result of lobbying by the powerful Drive-Thru Mortuary industry.

CITIZENS who have never successfully sued a drug company or a fast food franchise will be institutionalized.

FOURTEEN MILLION Americans will enter Mexico illegally this year, lured by that nation’s high standard of living, excellent health care system, and the prospect of employment in Guadalajara’s rich guacamole fields.

REGARDLESS, that classic Slim Whitman favorite, "Una Paloma Blanca" will remain our national anthem.

There, those are my prognostications. If I’m wrong, sue me. Or my descendants.