Heaven

To cope with my self-imposed isolation (which, frankly, gets easier to bear after the first ten years have passed), I began pretending I’ve died and gone to heaven. Of course, there’s no one else there. (Heaven has strict entrance requirements.) Wait—it just occurred to me—does the real heaven have Internet? Probably not. How would you get a computer into heaven? You can’t phone the computer store (assuming heaven has phones) and order a PC with a shipping label that says “Deliver To: Heaven.”

Or maybe you can. Many years ago I was an engineer at a company that manufactured mobile robots. Occasionally, we shipped a robot to a customer in another country. One day I wandered into the shipping department and the man in charge was getting a robot ready for shipping. The robot was packed inside a sturdy wooden crate. I noted the address label glued to the side of the crate. The label read (I’ve replaced the consignee’s real name),

Deliver To:
Mr. John Smith
The Netherlands

That was it. The consignee’s entire address was “The Netherlands.”

Maybe you’ve heard of Amsterdam and Rotterdam and The Hague. Those are cities in The Netherlands. That’s right: The Netherlands (sometimes informally called Holland) is a country of over 17 million people.

After I lowered my eyebrows to their normal location, a very short conversation ensued between me and the Shipping Department Guy.

Me: “That’s the address you’re giving the freight company?”
Guy: “Yes.”
Me: “Where’s the rest of the address? The city, the street?”
Guy: “That’s all I have.”
Me: “Oka-a-a-ay.”

I spun an about-face and walked out. I decided to take the Sgt. Schultz approach. I see nothing … I was not here … I did not even get up this morning. I could see a shipping fiasco in someone’s future.

But where was I? Oh yeah, heaven. I think we can conclude that heaven doesn’t have Internet. Nor does it have bars, beer, wine, whiskey shots, hot waitresses, Nascar, Super Bowls, or any manner of sex. In fact, the list of things heaven won’t have is a very long list. So what does Heaven have? According to pop culture, it has clouds to sit on, halos to polish, and humans with wings. I suggest we all go there with low expectations, then maybe the boredom won’t kill us all. Oh right, we’ll already be dead. Just as well.