Predictions 2015: Everything We Say Comes True
Vladimir Putin, in an attempt to get back onto the good side of America, offers to give Crimea back to the Ukrainians in exchange for the Americans giving Shelter Island to Russia. The offer is accepted. Most Shelter Islanders protest this, saying they don’t want to change, but the United States goes ahead anyway. Afterwards, Shelter Islanders say it’s not so bad after all. After that, all the sanctions are lifted.
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In January, the Next Big Thing is announced in Silicon Valley. All you have to do is think something. Your smartphone will pick it up, note your location and name and report it to the proper authorities.
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In April, the Army Corps of Engineers builds a tremendous 10-mile-long revetment of boulders to protect the shoreline of downtown Montauk, but in May a huge rogue wave rears up and tears it out. Montaukers report there is no other damage.
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A local high school, which gave up football last year because there were too few kids willing to try out for the team (their parents were concerned they’d get injured), now gives up soccer. During tryouts, a popular sophomore gets hit in the nose with a soccer ball while not looking, causing him to have a nosebleed. “We will not allow any sport of any kind to be played at our high school that might in any way cause a student to be injured, whether physically or psychologically,” the principal says. “And to that end, we are installing a surveillance and alarm system that will alert the soccer players by the sound of a horn that an incoming object is about to arrive so they have enough time to duck down and avoid it.”
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Edward Snowden, his one-year stay in Russia over, is told he will have to go somewhere else. And he does. On January 13, the day after he is given this information, he vanishes. A friend calls 911 and tells them what happened. “He was sitting in front of his computer and he pressed a few buttons and then, suddenly, his body rose, turned 90 degrees and just got itself sucked right into his screen. Honest to God.”
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Congress passes a comprehensive law that will keep the country going for another year, but this law also includes new legislation that removes some of the restrictive laws that put restraints on risky Wall Street security transactions. The stock market surges as a result, sending the Dow screaming to a new high of 41,812 in 24 hours, only to have it go into a nosedive and crash to the ground, throwing the country into chaos. Democrats everywhere say, “I told you so.”
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A new, glamorous, but very thin singing sensation named Bony Maronie appears on the scene in March. Her song “Shake Your Tush” goes platinum in 10 hours. All across America, fans start wearing pink sunglasses and yellow baseball caps covered with rhinestones and lose the tremendous amounts of weight that are necessary to be eligible to join Bony Maronie fan clubs that pop up everywhere in abandoned Burger Kings and McDonald’s restaurants. President Obama declares a state of emergency.
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In February, a Wall Street investment banker buys a small oceanfront two-bedroom home on four acres in Southampton and tears it down to replace it with a much larger and very modern eight-bedroom house. In April, next door, a corporate raider buys another small oceanfront two-bedroom home on four acres and tears that down to build a large 12-bedroom house in the Georgian style. The investment banker, who has not yet moved in, decides he does not like the size nor the Georgian design of the corporate raider’s house next door and so, to get away, sells his eight-bedroom modern house to a Russian oligarch who tears the investment banker’s modern house down and builds a 16-bedroom house in the style of a czarist Russian palace. But then in June, the corporate raider, who has not yet moved into his eight-bedroom Georgian mansion, decides he doesn’t like the design of the Russian oligarch’s new palace next door and so sells out to a Mexican drug lord who tears down the corporate raider’s 12-bedroom house and builds one that consists of 22 bedrooms. This continues on like this for months. New arrivals include a Spanish princess who tears down the 16-bedroom for a 26-bedroom, and the heir to a dog food fortune who tears down the 22-bedroom to build a 30-bedroom. But in December, the head of a wildly successful Silicon Valley start-up buys both properties, neither of which has ever had a new house lived in on it, tears everything down and gives the merged eight acres to the Nature Conservancy as a tax deduction.
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The Hamptons Subway system is sold to the New York City Subway System and Hamptons Subway Commissioner Bill Aspinall moves to Palm Beach.
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A store pops up suddenly on Jobs Lane in Southampton on July 1, injuring two.
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Due to an error in some architectural plans, road builders appear, extend the Sunrise Highway all the way to Montauk and then, by causeway, continue crazily out to Block Island and Martha’s Vineyard.
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Because the noise above the East Hampton Airport is so deafening to the locals who live below, a deal is made in May to ban all aircraft and helicopters. This results in tremendous numbers of wealthy people arriving by blimp. The locals find the blimps very spooky. They protest, saying the blimps sneak up on you while sunning at the pool, when you least expect it, suddenly putting you into shade and then releasing you back into the sunshine and this is not tolerable. They also say that when the blimps arrive, they are preceded by what smells like gas from the time they appear on the horizon until the passengers have climbed down the rope ladder to the runway. NO MORE BLIMPS is the rallying cry.
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The deer in North Haven organize, take over Village Hall, take down the American flag on the flagpole out front and, in its place, raise a pennant that features the silhouette of a white deer on a tan background.
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The Commissioner of Baseball announces a new rule that will spice up the game. A batter who strikes out will have to remove an article of clothing just prior to when he next steps up to the plate. The clothing removal will continue for each batter for a week, at which time a batter can start over with all his clothes back on. “Our statisticians say that if future games are anything like past games, nobody will ever have to take all their clothes off,” says the Commissioner. “But if someone is so bad that they strike out a lot, they will wind up batting naked for awhile, which is what
they deserve.”
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In Water Mill in July, wild Asian bamboo newly planted adjacent to a house sends rapidly moving roots out underground one rainy night, lifts up the house and eats it. Three people go missing.
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Also in July, the wild weather predicted to arrive over the Hamptons during the summertime appears in the form of two hurricanes, one arriving from the south and the other arriving from the north. They crash into each other directly above the Bridgehampton Founders Memorial, and the resulting rainbow is simply the most beautiful anyone has ever seen.
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Another hurricane marches up the Atlantic in early December, is told it’s too late, and then turns around and heads the other way.
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Tell us your predictions for 2015!