We have reached the halfway point of the first month of the new year and my resolution has already been flushed down the drain. Are you surprised? You shouldn’t be; my resolutions are usually vaporized by the time most people sober up from their New Year’s Eve drinking orgy. However, this year was supposed to be different. While I was spending New Year’s Eve by myself for the fourteenth year in a row, I vowed that the coming year was going to be different. Unfortunately, I broke it faster than a group of rowdy teenagers would a defenseless window pane on a dilapidated house. This is my sad, sordid tale of the opening stanza from this year. I’ll keep it short so I won’t cry on my laptop.
It all seemed so simple when I watched the ball drop on New Year’s Eve—I was going to talk to more people in the coming year. Not via Facebook, Snapchat, or even by phone, I was going to engage in meaningful conversation the old-fashioned way. Yes, I was planning to sit down with someone, look straight into their eyes and not their belly button and talk to them. I was presented the opportunity to get off to a good start on New Year’s Day when the checkout girl at the grocery store asked if I did anything interesting the night before. I stammered, stumbled and finally mumbled something to my frozen pizza, which was sitting in a bag on the bottom of my cart. Seventeen hours into the New Year and I already felt like a failure… and it only got worse on the second day.
When I returned to work after the Christmas holiday I told myself I was going to do everything in my power to talk to the UPS lady. Was she attractive? No! Was this a person I considered asking out? No!!! Nevertheless, any fragment of a conversation I had with this person could be used as a springboard to bigger and better things. I really don’t need to tell you what happened next. After I signed her handheld computer and a few inaudible grunts, the UPS lady handed me the package and scurried out of there faster than a mouse when the light comes on. Can you blame her? She knew she was about to fall into the black hole of awkwardness where there is no escape. While I watched her ugly brown truck pull out of the parking lot I already knew what my New Year’s resolution would be for 2019… not to make any.
