A Shiny New Year

Every year for quite some time I have tried to figure out what resolution I want to make for the New Year. Things usually end up the same every year. The eleventh hour begins to wane and I still haven’t decided what ‘thing’ I will fail at this year. Finally as the clock ticks down to midnight I get all flustered and decide reversing global warming is just too much work and decide that I will, again, decide to quit smoking.

OF course this resolution is broken at 12:01 am as I and the rest of the social pariahs huddle outside in the blowing snow using our lighters as a campfire to help stave off the cold (Note – women or metrosexuals wearing any type of fur or faux fur should not partake in warming themselves by the Zippo fire as, unbeknownst to some of us, fur burns-fast-and smells very very bad when it does).

New Years Eve is Christmas for adults. We get to wish for things we want and we get to shake off remnants, doubts and failures from the current year as it draws to a close.

What a great opportunity to mend fences on friendships that need to be repaired. The biggest problem we as a ‘civilized’ group need to contend with is that none or very few of us ever want to admit we were wrong or maybe we said something at a weak moment or we made a decision that was uninformed and hasty. This is the time of year when anyone can walk up to a former friend and say, ‘I’m sorry I kept ogling your wife’s cleavage and told all the guys I would kill you for the chance to play motorboat with her breasts.’ How difficult is it? If you get popped in the noodle, well maybe, just maybe he was never really your friend (or he has issues to which you are unaware regarding breasts, apologies or motorboating). In any case you have taken the high road, admitted you were in the wrong for what you said and have closure.

High hopes and wonderful expectations seem to emanate from most of us at this time of year. Fueled by the Christmas spirit and a longing to fulfill potential we all have but never give a chance to blossom we dare to dream about the possibilities of the quickly approaching new year.

On the one night of the year where we are all allowed to dream you can see people drift off into the ether and wish for a better future. We all usually start of with small wishes. ‘ I wish I could lose 15 pounds.’ Or, ‘I hope my husband gets run over by a bus.’ These are things that are possible with some exercise or a subtle push off the curb. Later on after some social lubricant we hit the Generosity Phase of the evening. This usually lasts for about an hour and by the time it is done every homeless person, orphan and stray cat has been accounted for with our well wishing, open hearts and intoxicated minds.

My personal favourite ‘phase’ is the Babbling Drunk Phase – to which I am very good at. This involves saving the planet, the baby seals, the homeless people and orphans, stray cats AND dogs and somehow acquiring superhero powers. Last year I am pretty sure I took over the province of Quebec, raised free range homeless people, taught dogs how to do calculus and could create vodka from anything by just concentrating really hard (I am the Dean Martin of Super heroes). I woke up with a headache and did not have the opportunity to kick the separatists out of Quebec.

Pipe Bomb Wishes;
1) I wish that on the morning of January 1st, everyone woke up and had common sense. No longer would we have to guess where or when people would be making a turn because their turn signal would let us know. Traffic would be less chaotic because people in the left hand lane would be passing cars in the right hand lane and then moving over to the right hand lane when it was safe to do so. We would know when this was going to happen because they would be using their turn signals. Life would be great because there would no longer be dolts congregating in front of doorways, escalators or hallways talking about whatever mundane things dolts talk about.
2) Accountability. No longer would we have to listen to newscasts about drunks slamming into buses and suing the owner of the bar. We wouldn’t have to have rules about wearing bicycle helmets because some politician’s drunk friend cracked his noggin while riding his three wheeled bike. Lying would be lying and we wouldn’t need a Grand Jury to convene to decipher what a lie really is just to bail out some bush league politician with the moral fiber of Hitler. Aside from putting a lot of lawyers out on the streets I think we would all have a better life if we admitted we were wrong once in a while and move away from frivolous lawsuits blaming other people for all of our misfortunes. If I have my way this year all the lawyers will be allowed to roam free in Quebec with the free range homeless people.
3) Children would all have mute buttons that work with any remote control or better yet, all we would have to say is ‘Stifle’ and pazow – no crying, no incoherent babbling and no back talk.
4) Universal Bullshit Detector on every person on the planet. I would never be able to write anything again but think of all the advantages of hearing – “This words coming out of this person’s mouth are bullshit- anything this person says is suspect and he should be treated with extreme prejudice – Have a nice non bull shitty day” every time some quack, lunatic or fanatical fiend tries to convince of something that isn’t real. This could get annoying if you are watching CNN but it is the price we have to pay to not have our lives disturbed, distorted or disrupted by people who make their living by annoying the crap out of the rest of us.
5) Elimination of the dreaded “STARE” or what I like to call –‘The Stink EYE!’ Every married man knows what this is and fears it more than the possibility of having his testicles yanked off by a herd of rabid mules. The ‘Stare’ does not obey the Laws of Physics. I could be three hundred miles away and I will suddenly get ‘the fear’. My neck will begin to get hot, my heart will beat much faster and my throat will get dry. Women know when something is being said about them- anywhere in the world. My wife has woken me up from a dead sound sleep and told me she knew what I was dreaming about and that if I continue dreaming about it she would be forced to turn the lights on so she could deploy the STARE on me. It’s very hard to get back to sleep when you have ‘the Fear.’
Hunter S. Thompson used to write about ‘the fear.’ The abridged interpretation could be described as – the weasels were closing in and it was near time to pay for the drug induced mayhem he and his cohorts had caused.
‘The fear’ to me consists of wondering why I have broken out in a cold sweat, how long I will be sleeping on the couch and what the hell I did or said. ‘The fear’ is akin to lowering your voice and looking around you before you tell an off colour joke. It’s the tiny voice in the back of your head that says, ‘don’t do it, don’t say it and don’t even think it- think of the consequences man!’ but you still do it anyway. Whenever you get ‘the fear,’ chances are, wherever you are that you will be getting ‘the Stare’ at any moment. Any man who says he is not afraid of the ‘Stare’ is lying or gay. There is no defence from the ‘Stare’ but I heard jewellery can lessen the effects.

As the countdown to the New Year has begun I have still not decided what altruistic endeavour I will fail at miserably this year. There are just so many ways to prove how I excel at mediocrity that making a decision about this potentially life altering resolution has me all kerfuffled. Screw it. I am just going to quit smoking – again.

May 2009 be your greatest year ever and not suck hind teat like 2008.