Dan's 2021 New Year Predictions

In January, after a seemingly endless battle to get peace and quiet around the East Hampton Airport neighborhood, the Federal Aviation Administration agrees to limit all flights in and out of the airport to just 8 hours, between midnight and 8 a.m. People are expected to be asleep at those hours. Turns out it works.

In February, Elon Musk sends a message from Mars back to America. It is not a message from a Mars rover. It is a message from Musk, the richest person in the world. He is on Mars, having, in the name of humanity, planted a flag of the United Nations.

“I couldn’t help myself,” he says. “We created the necessary technology. I thought I should be the first person to try it out. Mars is wonderful.”

U. S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement says that because he planted a United Nations flag rather than a United States flag, he has renounced his citizenship and will not be permitted to return to America. President Biden says he is working on solving the problem.   

“It’s one of Trump’s laws he got passed,” Biden says. “It’s deeply rooted, but we’re working on it.”

In March, the polluted Lake Agawam in Southampton is suddenly drained dry when environmentalists in a rowboat accidentally unplug the drain on the bottom. They discover that the entire lakebed is caked in peanut butter.

“No wonder we had such problems,” an environmentalist says.    

In April, the Town of East Hampton votes to build just one extremely tall Wi-Fi tower rather than fight with all the local communities, every one of them, that don’t want the regular size Wi-Fi towers in their neighborhood.

“It will be the tallest structure in the world,” the East Hampton town supervisor says. “Ten feet taller than the Burj Khalifa skyscraper in Dubai.”

But when construction is completed, the few residents living in the Northwest Woods neighborhood, where this tower is located, blow up one leg of it and it falls over. Everyone in East Hampton flees to find Wi-Fi elsewhere.

“We won’t make this mistake again,” the supervisor shouts through a megaphone.

In May, a wealthy person who wishes to remain anonymous pays more than $300 million to buy an estate in Sagaponack. It’s declared the largest real estate transaction in the Hamptons. But then when it’s learned that this anonymous person bought two adjacent estates and moved the mansions on each to attach to one another along the common border, the record still stands, but with an asterisk.

Also in May, it is declared that former President Trump, having given away $10 trillion to the poor during his time in office, has exceeded the amount that liberal Democratic President FDR gave away during the Depression. Trump is bounced out of the Republican Party.       

In June, it’s discovered that Febreze, when sprayed on ponds and lakes in the Hamptons, clears out the red algae blooms that have clogged up these waters over the years. People are advised to buy Febreze and spray it on whatever pond or harbor is nearest to them.

In July, U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping meet to settle their differences with a spelling bee. It’s winner take all. But it ends in a draw with Biden winning all the words spelled in English and Xi winning all the spelling in Mandarin. The two bump elbows, wave at one another and declare that all problems are solved.

In August, it’s found that the aforementioned Febreze, when sprayed into the air in massive amounts, reduces carbon in the atmosphere. Global warming can be beaten. All temperatures will return to normal. Everybody starts spraying.

In September, people who still believe that Venezualan President Hugo Chavez and the communists plotted to steal the 2020 U.S. presidential election using faulty voting booths made in Venezuela, that Hillary Clinton was selling babies in the back room of a West Virginia Burger King and that Barack Obama in the third grade forged himself an American birth certificate so he could become president 46 years later, will be required to move to a brand new state in the union, the 51st, carved out for them for a hundred miles in every direction from the point where Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Utah meet. People rush to get there to become citizens of this new state called New Pinocchio.   

In October, the underground cable from the newly built offshore wind farm sending electricity to the East Hampton power grid is completed. But at the end of the month, Elon Musk, just returned from Mars, says he has discovered a way to send electricity from Point A to Point B by using a new invisible force he has discovered. Cables are no longer needed.    

In November, the vote to establish the Village of Wainscott is declared null and void when it is found that several ballots were eaten by goats.    

In December, Santa Claus is found to be real. The news shreds through the social media at such a pace that Facebook, Twitter, Google and Apple can’t handle the load and all have to be bailed out by the government.