So spoke the late, great Gilda Radner, as befuddled news commentator Emily Litella, on “Saturday Night Live” way-back-when.
Poor Emily, always getting worked up over some topic of the day and always getting it wrong with her hilarious malapropisms (the plight of Soviet “jewelry” instead of “Jewry,” her inability to understand the fuss over “violins on television” and her take on the 1976 presidential election which can’t be repeated here). Corrected by Chevy Chase or Jane Curtin, Emily/Gilda would dismiss all the self-imposed hysteria she had just whipped up with a cheery “never mind!”
Emily could be the poster girl for today’s age of near-breathless uncertainty, in which today’s Armageddon becomes tomorrow’s “never mind!”
You’re reading these words a day before the fifth anniversary of Sept. 11, so, of course, one can’t blame America and the world for being jittery since that awful day. Jittery and hypersensitive to anything that will endanger us, our children or our way of life, be it terrorism, The Bomb, bird flu, or People Who Act Funny On Planes.
All legitimate concerns, of course. But how many times in the last few weeks have we heard about aircraft suddenly being diverted to land only to find out that the bottle of water found by the flight attendant was not a weapon of mass destruction or that the poor troubled lady who had a panic attack on another flight and urinated on the cabin floor have nothing to do with terrorists.
Oh, and the three guys arrested in Michigan for plotting to blow up the Mackinac Bridge? No evidence they were. Never mind!
Of course it’s better to err on the side of caution, and, let’s face it, if somebody is mumbling and urinating on a plane, it is a good idea for the pilot to land at the nearest airport.
I just wish it were for that very reason: unhinged person on board. That’s it. Not because, as reported at one point, the aforementioned unhinged person on the aforementioned flight had a screwdriver, Vaseline and a note referring to al-Qaida.
She didn’t. Never mind!
Oh, and you’ve forgotten, the world was supposed to come to an end Aug. 22, when that crazy guy running Iran was supposed to do something Very, Very Bad. He didn’t. Except stay in power yet another day.
I didn’t even remember that the world was supposed to end that Tuesday (darn ... would have called in sick) until later in the day. But wait — by then, wouldn’t it have already been Aug. 23 in Tehran?
Oh, that’s very different! Never mind!
Stephen Kopfinger is a Sunday News staff writer. Contact him at skopfinger@lnpnews.com or at 291-8799.
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