AUGUST 24th - Jokes in Hot Lava



On this day in 79 A.D., Mount Vesuvius blew its top, resulting in the death of thousands of Romans in Pompeii and Herculaneum. While this was certainly a horrific tragedy during the time it occurred, it would eventually become an archaeological blessing. Everyday life of 1st Century Pompeii was preserved in a tomb of molten ash just waiting to be discovered thousands of years later to help present day people understand what things were like. Now, I’m certainly not saying I would wish asphyxiation or being burned alive by molten hot magma on anyone. It sounds pretty damn awful. Possibly one of the worst ways to go. Though being drawn and quartered wouldn’t be very peaceful either. Still it did afford a unique opportunity. I don’t particularly know if Romans were known as practical jokers, or if anyone in Pompeii or Herculaneum had any idea that their horrible fate would keep them frozen in time. But look, they were screwed no matter what. Might as well have a little fun. I’d have tried to hold the weirdest positions imaginable. I would I have climbed out a window and hung by my feet. Or I would have gone on my front stoop and acted like a gargoyle. I would have had my family play leap-frog until the lava overtook us. Or try to have everyone on a block walk on their hands. I would have done all sort of crazy shit. Why? Just to mess with people in the future. Just so they got things wrong. Of course for this to really work it would have had to be more mundane things. Like having everybody wear a pot on their head. So that many, many years from then, our archaeologists would be like the seagull in The Little Mermaid, telling Ariel that a fork was used to comb hair. It wouldn’t stop the horrible painful death, but they could have had one hell of a chuckle almost 2,000 years later.

This Day has been Marked.

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