Resolv-olution!

Hey what’s the big deal with resolutions and New Year’s Eve? Honestly last time we hung out with EVE didn’t we learn anything after that little ‘apple incident’ back in the days of Eden? Wouldn’t you know it though, like everyone else, just before that big dumb glitter ball drops, I can’t help it – I want to start resolving stuff too!

The problem is that one minute into the New Year and I immediately begin to lose my resolve to actually follow through with those lofty-topped resolutions. I mean it’s tough trying to keep my vows and stop eating my own weight in chicken wings – especially since the farm ‘chicks’ I hang out with are never ‘down’ with that. Oh sure it would be nice to replace our clog-prone commodes with those bowls that will swallow buckets of golf balls; but whose got that much time to pilfer from the driving range?

We don’t need some arbitrary end-of-year date to tell us what to do and how to better change our ways. Anyway, isn’t December already kind of packed full of holiday hoe-downs and expensive excesses without the added burden of tired self-reflection and relentless regret rituals? Maybe my first resolution this year will be to dissolve the resolve of New Years Day and start a ‘Resolv-olution’ of sorts!

Just think how great it would be to face the upcoming year guilt-free while wearing any ol’ quirky lampshade you care to slip on? Even that fat, pink n’ ‘nekkid’ sash-ensconced New Years baby could eat anything and would appreciate the freedom from making hefty life decisions so early in the year. Without lofty goals or high-brow standards to get in the way, I could do darn near anything today and worry about those nagging consequences and restrictive resolutions tomorrow. Or better yet how about next month, or maybe next YEAR during some memorable & special event in time? Hmmm … why not when they drop that shiny New Years ball at Midnight – now that’s a revolutionary resolution solution!

Conephobia

Ever since I donned my first dunce cap in a dark n’ dreary corner at grade school, I have never been a fan of cone shaped objects. Think about it, whenever cones shows up outside a party it almost ALWAYS means trouble - or at least a lot of traffic congestion. Yeah, it may be hip these days to condone garden gnomes and worship Harry Potter’s talking wizard topper, but let me tell you nothing good (especially my grades) has ever come from pointy-head geometry.

Oh sure you can use your Cone-dome to single-out South East Asians who truly love their Mekong rice-paddy hats to keep and look cool all at the same time. Remember though, not so far away pimple-popping Pacific peaks freely spit-up lava in your face, like a bad baby brimming with gut-gas and a craw full of over-ripe pineapple pablum. Yep, the only comely Cone-y that a big APEx like me will pony up to at a table, is one slathered in mustard, onions, and oh so fashionable neon-green relish.

Also, what ‘dim-tin-tin’ dog of a marketing ‘goo-roo’ decided that ice cream is far more fun in a pencil tipped ‘sugar cone’ rather than in the confines of a safe, sane, and POINT-LESS ‘cake cup’? Does this waffling world of ice cream wimps REALLY need two types of edible receptacles; especially when the one with the bayonet for a body makes us dig a hole FIRST before we can sit the drippy mess down?

Double ditto for phony-coney coffee filters – after all these years, other than the Easter Bunny and his marshmallow nougated ilk, what’s the ‘prob’ with packs of flat n’ happy BASKET cases? Remember though, since I’m from the Midwest, you have to slice me a scintilla of slack. Because around these parts, both alley dwelling funnel clouds and funnel cake blowhards like myself have been known to run amok on occasion which often leads to great damage of both the tree-line as well as my waistline!

My Dickens Christmas traditions

Except for the stuffed and mounted Santa & sleigh on the wall, my family has a few oddball Christmas traditions too just like everyone else. Mind you I’m no Scrooge-dude, but over the years I have assembled a slightly warped array of holiday harbingers & habits to help herald n’ Hark the angels ‘BARK’, albeit a bit off-key. Oh sure our gaggle of odd ducks still suck nog and exchange gifts of cheap & waxy chocolate covered cherries and brickyard fruitcake, because Christmas is nothing if it isn’t about quality.

Anyone can buy gaudy and poorly made 3rd world ornaments for their family but I insist on contributing to our nation’s constant need for landfill refuse by making my own. Yes, nearly every year I try to show my Mother the meaning of ‘true love’ with a homemade or recycled ornament creation of hanging JOY. Who can resist some of these decades old deformed beauties when they are made out of rare Christmas finery like waffle batter, peanut shells, melted soda bottles, or my favorite art medium – dryer lint?

My wife’s siblings and parents prefer to exchange ‘gag’ gifts every year instead of the obligatory stacks of lifeless gift cards. It makes sense since doesn’t everyone love a holiday meal graced with a giant restaurant-sized can of pork n’ beans donning a glittery Santa hat at the head of the table? Not to be out-done, my own Father spreads a healthy helping of Christmas cheer too by annually competing with his Army buddies to distribute the ‘UGLIEST’ Christmas cards they can find and dare send.

So judge me not for my inner ‘hum bug’ and forgive my assault upon age-old holiday traditions. Clearly I am one pinched loaf short of a bread pudding and my lameness should remain blameless due to my family’s BAD genes AND taste. So now you know my relatives may see quality differently, but we TOO try to keep a Dicken’s Christmas “well’ – it’s just that we’re a 'tiny Tim' more ‘SCROOGED’ up than you.

HillBILLY 'Grinchmas'

Hey just because I’m always scratching, walking around with spinach in my teeth, and usually hairy doesn’t mean that I am some hillbilly Christmas Grinch. The only issue is that as I get older I would prefer if all the holiday ‘Hul-la-ba-WHO’ would just get over with a tad quicker, that’s all. Far beyond the gallons of Nyquil I brew n’ consume from the still daily; effectively from one second after Halloween through New Years day, life compresses and besieges me as one big, bimonthly burr-blur.

Oh sure it’s easy to act all high & jolly and kiss random elves & animals when mistletoe, rum-laced nog and choco treats race to the brain to free my inner ‘DOPE-amine’. But I really don’t need any more excuses to do LESS work or accost my remaining un-institutionalized friends or their laundry, with good CHEER and random acts of Christmas. Anyway, who wants Santa’s stinking perpetual pine scent all over my trusty rust-bucket and bounty of hoarded stuff for one sixth of my entire life? As long as my wife, a.k.a. ‘Mrs. Claws’, gives me permission to goof off and keep intravenously beefing up my already well powdered and sugar-coated ‘gut-muffin’, every day IS MY holiday Right?!

Yeah I grouse and whine but it’s all in good ‘ol bum-country fun. Actually my inner ‘Grinch’ is rather endearing when I start to pass ou..t - uh sorry?, … the roast beast feast to my cousin, mother, and step-daughter - who all happen to be the SAME person. While city-folk rage over the age-old quandary of ham OR turkey, ‘round here, at our ‘Road-Kill rally’ we can score BOTH, cooked over a roaring Firestone tire fire by the ‘up-chuck wagon’. Usually by Christmas though, not only has my ‘Grinch-initesimal ‘ heart abruptly enlarged, but my beltline and the pan full of cat litter under my Lazy Boy has swelled thrice its size as well.

So you coastal dwellers and holiday snobs can keep all of your fancy long drawn-out traditions, seasonally-lighted houses with the wreath adorned doors, and fake snow on your window panes. In the Midwest we NEVER take down our lights without a court order and we drive around with REAL deer and bloody antlers stuck to our pick-ups. Yes, in the ‘Zarks, we can count on the pleasure of genuine snow and frigidity to brighten our toothless smiles far beyond just the months of November and December. Gee I guess around here every day must be Christmas and I am just an old ‘inbred Grinch’ after all!

Forget gyms just EXERCISE!

Just because I don’t belong to a gym doesn’t mean I’m averse to exercise, it just means that in MY typical mental state I am not allowed to operate HEAVY machinery. No to stay fit, I want to get my ‘juice’ the old fashioned way by skulking back and forth between the refrigerator, recliner, and the litter box near the roach motel. I used to be in a lot better shape when I was young but once they invented zippers, TV remotes and the devil’s utensil – the ‘spork’, I got a little lazy and a tad flabby.

Oh sure since I type a lot and know my way around a can of aerosol cheese, you probably have guessed that I’m a world class athlete from wrists to fingerprints. Sadly it’s just the rest of my flesh that flaps and flags furiously in a stiff wind which makes me pause, not with concern, but to catch my breath. Apparently my wife worries about my cold, stiff, body too, since she routinely tells me where to ‘go’ to warm up, and she wants me to get off my coffin to increase my activity level and exercise routine.

Even during frigid times of the year I try to appease the spouse with a brisk walk together over the dark and cold Midwest tundra to Taco Bell for dinner. I don’t mind following carrots as long as they taste like tacos, and anyway you’ve never lived until you boot your way through recently thawed permafrost into a two inch layer of muddy ‘Mr. Ma-GOO’! Who needs a hot, expensive & sweaty gym when the great outdoors will suck off your shoes and offer-up 10 pound ankle anchors for free? After all bulky Hulks like me need all the help I can get, to lift and separate my Frankenstein gate, and enhance my already cartoon-creature image.

Like satanic thoughts, most of my daily fitness routine is thrust upon me involuntarily anyway, as I try to keep up with the stuff that makes trouble, breaks double, or takes a fall on top of my ‘un-loved’ Amityville shack. Inside this cavern, there is always a cold darkness stalking me, but that might be because I’m just ‘bats’ by pulling the shades and setting the thermostat too low? When it comes to graveYARD work I am taunted by millions of demon leaves and howling, windy, tree-things which need bunching, crunching, and perpetual decomposition. Now you can see I don’t really need to be banished to a gym to get in shape - I just need to be regularly EXORCISED!