Welcome to an annual series I haven’t actually done on the blog yet: April Fools’, except it’s not.

The concept is simple: write about the modern world in such a way that it would sound like a bizarre April Fools’ joke to someone from the past. I wrote a version of this on social media in 2015 and 2016, but then in 2017 the joke stopped being funny. Fortunately, “Donald Trump was the President of the United States” actually is much funnier than “Donald Trump is the President of the United States,” so the joke can come back.

So imagine that it’s April 1st, 1999, and you have just received this letter from the future. Pretty good joke, right?

Except it’s not.

Dear 1999 fool,

The year is 2021, and the United States has been at war for 19 years.

Everything has changed in the two decades since terrorists destroyed the World Trade Center, but the truth is the war has been going on for so long that it hardly ever makes the news anymore. Instead, the big news is something far more deadly: a new disease called COVID-19 has become a global pandemic that has killed nearly three million people and counting.

Fortunately, the end is may finally be in sight. We have four separate vaccines, created semi-collaboratively by four separate pharmaceutical companies at never-before-imagined speed. But 25 percent of Americans say they would rather take their chances with catching a deadly disease. We also know that wearing a thin cloth mask over your nose and mouth can cut the probability of transmission to near zero, but many people are saying that being told to wear a thin cloth mask over your mouth and nose is just like the Holocaust. It’s like the fable of the Ant and the Grasshopper, except that instead of the Grasshopper laughing at the Ant’s warning, the Grasshopper calls him a Nazi.

President Joe Biden has promised that vaccines will be available to all Americans by May 1st. Yes, that Joe Biden, who is still around at age 78, his 1980s-era scandals forgotten. But that’s not even the weird part. The weird part is that the previous president was Donald Trump. Yes, that Donald Trump. The national debt increased so much during the Trump administration that Republicans are now saying that the national debt isn’t so bad. Trump also claimed, with no evidence at all, that he was the real winner of last year’s Presidential election that he lost. His wife once posed for a nude lesbian photo shoot, but don’t worry, the Trumps oppose gay marriage.

Remember last year when Republicans impeached President Clinton for having an affair with an intern? Republicans now say that the President’s personal life doesn’t matter and the President should never be impeached for any reason.

If you’re into technology and have enough disposable income, you might have a cell phone – today, everyone has them. My phone comes with a video camera, a television, and music player to listen to songs like last year’s number one song, WAP (which of course stands for wet-ass pussy). It also offers instant access to all the knowledge of the world. I use it to catch Pokemon.

Have you heard of Tom Brady, the backup quarterback for the University of Michigan? He has now won seven Super Bowls, more than any single NFL team. But in Brazil he is still mostly known as Gisele Bündchen’s husband.

For the rest of 2021, we’re all looking forward to… anything, really. We’ve all been stuck inside for so long due to COVID-19. Here’s to better times ahead!