I hope that you had an enjoyable Thanksgiving. There were a couple of things that threw me off this year, one being its weird placement, seemingly mid-month, meaning that my Holi-gay-dar is off about a week. (I’m already starting to obsess about wrapping paper patterns: Which is better—reindeer-holding-candy-cane motif, or polar bear-wrestling-penguin-on-ice-flow?)

Another thing that upset the equilibrium of an otherwise laid-back Turkey Day was the conversation I endured with my partner’s-sister’s-boyfriend just before the NFL kickoff (and after two tarted-up shots of eggnog with my future mother-in-law, no less). I should have seen the “warning flag” when he—we’ll call him Jimmy, as in “Jimmy Olsen,” reflecting both his eager nature and my difficulty at taking him seriously after the conversation I am about to describe—asked me what I thought about the results of the presidential election.

I was immediately suspicious of the topic: Jimmy is a nice kid—barely into his 20s—but he is possessed of the strong opinions and—Lord ha’ mercy—boundless energy, enthusiasm, and lack of tact that is endemic to his demographic group.

After whispering the political equivalent of sweet nothings, Jimmy went in for the kill. What did I think of the “widely-held” belief of “Biblical scholars” that President Obama’s re-election is a fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies. And New Testament prophecies. And Nostradamus prophecies. And Mayan 2012-Apocalypse Now!-prophecies. Kill me now: Someone who thinks Obama is the Antichrist.

I will admit here in a public forum that I was probably too forceful in my counter-argument—and did I mention I was in two or three eggnogs deep? I recall offering Jimmy something helpful in reply (to the effect of, “Don’t give me ******* Biblical prophecy on Thanksgiving, Bri—I mean, Jimmy”) before launching a pre-emptive strike against the possibility of him dropping an A (as in “Antichrist”) bomb.

I told Jimmy that his menu of religious and otherworldly predictions came from a scattering of belief systems, most of which would find very little to agree with the others, except, “miraculously” this confluence of oracular data. Seeing that I was having the opposite-from-desired effect—fanning the flames of his fanaticism rather than smothering them in logic—I stepped up my appeal to the Goddess Reason.

I informed him that within my own faulty memory, the list of historic “Antichrist” candidates from past failed predictions has included—but is certainly not limited to—Yasser Arafat, Bill Gates, Mikhail Gorbachev, FDR, JFK, Henry Kissinger, Martin Luther, Benito Mussolini, Adolf Hitler, the Roman Emperor Nero, Pope John Paul II, the Shah of Iran, Ronald Reagan, Pat Robertson, Manuel Noriega, George Bush (H.W. and W.), Anwar Sadat, Jimmy Carter, Saddam Hussein, Muammar Qaddafi, Charles Manson, David Rockefeller (Sr. and Jr.), Boris Yeltsin, the “Beast” super computer of the European Union, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, and now Barak Obama.

Not wanting to leave anyone out, I “reminded” him that the Jehovah’s Witnesses predicted no less than a dozen “end of world” scenarios, including a 1971 prediction that the “battle in the day of Jehovah” would begin “within our twentieth century.” Time flies.

Fundamentalist Mormon—think: HBO’s “Big Love”—Prophet Leroy Johnson set the date that Christ would claim “the Keys of Priesthood” from him for the year 1998, and predicted that he would shepherd his polygamist flock until Jesus’ Second Coming. Johnson’s 1986 death surprised his followers.

After touching on the state of the world just four short weeks before its putative December 21 end (according to the Mesoamerican Mayan calendar), with no apparent reason (or scientific evidence) to suspect or support that predicted end, I figured I would spare Jimmy the Scientologists’ take on Xenu, rogue thetans, and the intergalactic DC-8s: He looked exhausted.

My point here is not to destroy the legitimate intellectual curiosity of a genuinely decent young man who will make a valuable contribution to our society (and who doesn’t have a hateful bone in his body).

But prophecy, like prophets, is a dime a dozen. It’s okay to have your beliefs, as long as they are grounded in reality.

Or, like a wise man—Krishan Manners, co-owner of the Island City Art Walk and CEO of the Wilton Manors Development Alliance, to be precise—told me this afternoon: “I expect to be here on December 22.” So may we all.