Resolving my Resolutions
Every year I vow to improve myself in some way, shape or form, and every year I fail spectacularly. I never ran that marathon. I never learned to speak Russian, or Arabic, or Icelandic. I never sponsored an endangered animal or a politician, and I have yet to ride a unicycle.
It is a mathematical certainty that if I vow to do something, it is not going to happen. In fact, usually the complete opposite occurs. So in that defeatist and antithetical spirit, I resolve to do the following things in 2009:
1) I will gain 25 pounds. I will burn my gym pass, my workout clothes and my running shoes in an athletic conflagration that I will set ablaze with the fading embers of my self-esteem. I will gorge myself on chocolate cheesecake and Funyons. I will become one with my La-Z-boy recliner and while away the next 12 months watching Lifetime original movies and America's Funniest Pet. I will not eat celery.
2) I vow to be environmentally unconscious. I will not go green. I will go orange, or red, or whatever else is on the opposite end of the color wheel. I will leave my Christmas lights up year-round and add new ones every month. I will run the washing machine half empty and replace all my florescent, energy-saving light bulbs with the old-school, tree-killing kind. I will leave my computer charger, my cell phone charger, my blackberry charger, my camera charger, my other computer charger and my portable, pocket-sized-cappuccino-machine charger plugged in at all times. I will buy an SUV and send chain letters to Al Gore.
3) I will drink, a lot.
4) I will not make time for my friends or family. I will become one of those anti-social workaholics who list their office under "In Case of Emergency." I will have my blackberry surgically attached to my hip and my Bluetooth hot glued to my ear. I will shun all human contact and live in a cardboard box under my desk.
5) I will date an egomaniacal, narcissistic chauvinist who still lives with his mother and designed his own prison tattoos. I will encourage him to be disloyal and then reward his womanizing by subsequently giving him the pin number to all my bank accounts. I will allow his death metal band to practice in my garage and accept collect calls from the drummer, who is still locked up in County. I will then introduce him to my mother.
6) I will start smoking – not just my own cigarettes, but other people's as well. I will stand outside of office buildings and scarf up the burned-out butts that litter the sidewalk. I will lobby to repeal the anti-smoking bans and send letters of encouragement to Phillip Morris. I will snub the surgeon general.
7) I will use my credit cards for all purchases, including gum. I will shop at stores I can't afford and buy designer shoes that cost a full month's rent. I will continue to spend four dollars on my morning latte and $3.50 for a mangled muffin. All bills and statements will arrive at my door bearing a stamp that says "Envelope one of three." I will then put my credit card bills on layaway.
8) I will not volunteer or become a better person in any way. I will tell the homeless they can scoop their own chicken noodle and keep my change far, far away from those pesky bell-ringers. I will have unnecessary cosmetic surgery so that I am disqualified from giving blood and send gangsta rap CDs to my local senior center. I will divide the United Way.
9) Above all, I will resolve to stop resolving. I am not going to change or improve. I am going to remain the same bitter, self-aggrandizing, relation-ship challenged, highly-addictive, workaholic basket-case I have been every other year. I will not allow the guilty excess of the holiday season to strong-arm me into resolute reform. I pledge to remain my somber, sub-par self until 2010, at which time I will likely have forgotten my pledge and start this list all over again.