Six years ago tonight, the world waited with great apprehension to learn whether the Y2K Bug would zap the new Millennium into chaos.

Much time and money had been spent trying to update the technological world against the aberration. Somehow, the gurus of the 20th Century had failed to comprehend the looming of the next thousand-year era. Older computers couldn’t change their clocks from the 1900s to the 2000s, and fear fomenters had the world in their clutches.

We were warned that computer chips in cars could quit. Businesses could lose data. Checkouts in grocery and department stores might fail. Personal computers might lock up. The threat was real, and if the worst happened, an economic disaster would likely follow!

So the still-youthful Internet was full of websites offering survival tips and kits. Many even had online stores that sold a year’s supply of food. Some of it could be delivered to your door all vacuum-sealed and ready to eat like an MRE. This was war!

Now, I ask: Don’t you wonder whatever happened to the Y2K bug? After all, nothing happened when the clock struck midnight at the dawn of 2000. Like Cinderella, the Y2K Bug just disappeared. Later, everybody said that efforts to update were successful, and the problem had perhaps been overstated.

So, what did happen? It’s a story I’ve been waiting to tell for years. It’s kind of unbelievable, but I swear by the words of The Hunter and The Youngun, it’s the truth as they told it!

Just before New Year’s Eve 1999, The Hunter and The Youngun were over in the big, boggy Billow Swamp huntin’ whitetail deer. They were up in their tree stand where The Hunter was snoozin’ and The Youngun’ was playin’ Pokemon Red on the new Gameboy Color he got for Christmas. They were waitin’ til near about dusk dark when the deer usually move when all of a sudden, they heard movement and looked up to see a pair of CD-Rom eyes starin’ at them!

The critter had a computer-monitor head, a pair of speaker ears and a printer tray for a mouth! Its tongue, which they said was flappin’ in and out, looked like an old-fashioned floppy disk.

Well, The Hunter got enough gumption to ask the critter what he was and what he wanted. The critter then claimed to be the Y2K Bug!

Said he was on a flight around the world checkin’ things out.
Said he was lookin’ for the greenest, slimiest, sickest crud he could find to infiltrate the computer chips of the Earth.
Said gurus had near about cured his aberration, and he wanted filth that would be impossible to cure!

So he asked The Hunter what he thought about computers and what kind of crud was in that swamp. The Hunter didn't exaggerate. “I ain’t got no use for computers! I spent all day yesterday backin’ up files at work to escape the likes of you, and even when you ain’t around, there’s enough other bugs to crash the system and cause the headache of the century! You’re welcome to whatever germs you can find in this swamp! It’s got St. Louis Encephalitis skeeter larvae, wild hog droppins and all kinds of worms. Just help yourself!”

So, the Y2K Bug went about stickin’ his floppy tongue to test the scum. The Hunter then asked how he planned to go about infiltratin’ the chips. The Bug replied that if The Hunter would be kind enough to lend him a computer, he’d just spit swamp water into the motherboard and send that virus ‘round the world!

So The Hunter said, “Follow me home! My wife’s got a computer that ain’t worth nothin’ to me. I don’t see the use of it. Kill that thing, and maybe she’ll start workin’ ‘round the stove again, stirrin’ up some venison stew!”

Well, about this time, a deer wearing a trophy set of antlers stepped from behind a clump of trees. The Hunter whispered to The Youngun to get his gun ready. But The Youngun, being of the New Millennium Generation, had heard all the conversation and wasn’t too sure he agreed with his daddy about computers. Why, if that Bug spit venom into his mama’s computer, he couldn’t play that PC racing game. He might not even be able to play Pokemon Red on the Gameboy! And he surely wouldn’t have access to that Dragonball Z website on the Internet! And what about all those Russian missiles that were said to be aimed at us? Could the Bug zap them into space at midnight?

So, The Youngun took the safety off his rifle, sighted in the 12-point buck, then swung the barrel ‘round real quick at that levitatin’ Y2K varmint and blasted him to KINGDOM.COM! Then, he coolly aimed again at the fleeing buck and downed him, too!

Now, The Youngun has his trophy deer head mounted on the wall at his house to prove he bagged him, but there wasn’t anything left at all of that Y2K Bug to prove he killed him! The shot was just so close, it obliterated the critter forever!

Now, I’ve not told this story before, because I knew some of those Y2K hoarders spent years chokin’ down big caches of Spam they bought and didn’t need after all, and I didn’t want them getting’ all riled and comin’ after my youngun’!

The MAMA of The Youngun’