"Dow falls 513 points. Investors panic as the ruble slips and the Asian markets drop again."

Black Monday was here.

"Geez, pleez say it ain't so," said Dave. "My whole friggin' life savings is tied up in the stock market!"

"Bummer, Dave." I too wondered about our little nest egg. Suddenly, I could picture that "Here is your brain on drugs" ad, as the wacked out girl smashed those eggs to smitherines with that nasty old skillet.

We glanced up again at the TV and saw the burnt out rubble of the African embassy bombings. An evil picture of Osama Ben Laden appeared. You didn't have to hear the dialogue.

"Damn. It's getting so you can't be safe anywhere anymore," said Dave, as our Ukranian waitress poured still another beverage into our mugs.

"Hell, I'm afraid to take a plane anymore."

"I know what you mean."

As we lit up two Don Thomas cigars (our Russian server even brought us some matches), the sports report started. Images of the Baltimore Birds in an 8-game slide and the bumbling Deadskins flashed across the screen.

"Now, that REALLY pisses me off," shouted Dave, blowing large rings of smoke onto the kid at the next table.

"Holy Cow, Batman, It's Armageddon!!" I shouted spontaneously. The house erupted into uproarious laughter. Katy from Kiev poured us another beverage and sat down at our table (it wasn't a very busy night). Perhaps the discussion that followed was somewhat influenced by the company and the beer.

"Suppose you know world would come to end next month," said Katy. "What craziness would you do?" Her English wasn't bad.

"I would date every girl I could find," said Dave, "starting with Katy."

"I'm married to a Marine," she said, "but if gonna die, why not!"

"I would buy a wide-screen TV and watch Dr. Zhivago for days," I said. (Hey, my wife is reading this).

"And I would travel back to Kiev and visit my family one more time," said Katy.

"OK. Enough of this crap. If you knew the world would really come to an end in a month, what would you REALLY do?"

"Uhh...I would shoot that bastard, Finkel, my boss, and feed his carcass to the lions at the Zoo," said Dave.

"That's more like it. I would hack into every goody-goody web page on the Internet and replace them with nudie-cutie pictures of Julie Christy," I offered, getting into the swing of it now.

"Would drink 10 vodka shooters and streak down Charles Street," purred Katy.

Dave upped the ante: "I would drink 20 shooters and piss on the Washington Monument."

"Thanks the spirit, Dave. I think I would fly to Las Vegas and spend 72 hours in the Casino at the Luxor."

"I like Las Vegas," said Katy, now comfortably ensconced on one of the bar stools next to Dave. "I would go with you and get job as showgirl."

"Talk about living dangerously. I would drive my 280Z down the Gladys Spelman Parkway and throw glass shards and nails out my window," said Dave.

"I would tell every telemarketer to send two of everything and charge it to your account, Dave," I countered.

"Would quit my job at this place and take job as policeman. I always wanted to wear a gun. Then I would pull over every driver on 695 who drive fast and bust his head," said Katy, now leaning noticably on Dave's shoulder.

"I think I would put anthrax in the Washington water supply and take all those politicians out of their misery," said Dave, now looming dangerously close to Katy's rather ample, uh, well, you know what I mean.

As the three of us sunk lower and lower into our chairs, the beer kept flowing, and the converstaion kept deteriorating to more sick and bizarre "Armageddon behavior," the kid at the next table suddenly piped up and offered this doozy:

"Hell, you guys are f....g crazy! I would screw everything in a skirt, smoke all the weed I could get my hands on, and lay my hands on all the Uzis I could muster and off the entire military-industrial complex before I hijacked a 747 and flew to Hawaii for one last massive orgy on the beach before I die."