By now, it’s been a few weeks since the jolly fat man in the red suit broke into all of those homes that have, reportedly, good little girls and boys. It will be another 50 some weeks before he pays a return visit.
Also, by getting through these past few weeks, you survivors who are reading this will have successfully made it past the annual orgy of eating, football and parades that are Christmas celebrations and New Year’s television programming.
“We’re only five days into the new year,” my partner, the Lady Marjorie, called from the living as I rummaged in the refrigerator. I was collecting the components of a truly magnificent, Dagwood-sized sandwich. “So how are you doing with your New Year’s resolutions?” she asked smugly.
I looked at the sandwich and thought about my promise to start eating more sensibly. “Well, I’m easing into it,” I replied. “You wouldn’t want to see me push to excess and then starve, would you?” (How did she know I was constructing a virtual tower of food? Does she have X-ray vision?)
“From the looks of your stomach, I don’t think we have to worry about that anytime soon.”
As we split a bottle of New Year’s Eve champagne, we each promised each other a few modifications we’d try to make in our daily lives. “I’ll try to get by with a few less new pairs of shoes,” the Lady Marjorie projected, “and, since I know it really upsets you, I’ll even attempt to change my toothpaste dispersal techniques too. (She squeezes from the middle.) But since I’m the one who’s in charge of always buying it, when we start running out, I think I ought to be able to squeeze it anywhere I want.”
“Look, Imelda,” I countered, “just because you buy something for the household, that doesn’t give you the right to have total control of that item.”
“Well, what are you going to do?” she queried. “I will start watching what I eat,” I promised.
“Yeah, you watch it all the way from your plate to your mouth.” “No, seriously,” I responded sincerely, “I’ll attempt to modify my caloric intake and I’ll try to exercise more too.”
“That will be something. I get worried about your heart and your weight. I want to see you use all that exercise equipment you’ve bought for something other than a clothes rack.”
“I’ll resolve to stop drinking alcohol, too,” I added to my list of resolutions. “You don’t drink alcohol now,” Lady M pointed out. “Well, I wanted to have at least one resolution I knew that I’d be successful with.”
“You know one of your problems?” she asked quizzing me further. “It’s that you emulate the sloth.”
“Hey,” I defended myself, “the sloth has always been one of my favorite animals. When you go to the zoo, you never have to wonder if you’ve got fast enough film in your camera to capture the antics of the sloth while you’re photographing it. And when was the last time you heard of an enraged sloth attacking some innocent bystander? They’d be the perfect pet.”
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