THIS IS WHAT I SAID: “My New Year’s resolution this year is to have no New Year’s
resolution.” Well, that didn’t work.
All the major American holidays have some bad traditions associated with them. For
example, gluttony is associated with . . . hmmm . . . all the major American holidays.
Penitence and subsequent penance often follows shortly thereafter — when the
cumulative impact of Halloween/Thanksgiving/Christmas/New Year’s comes home to
roost, usually on my belly.
Like my friend Dave! Ward, I say: “I would be willing to do anything to have a fit and
muscular physique — except diet or exercise.”
* One year I resolve to lose weight.
* The next year I resolve to diet.
* The next year I resolve to get more exercise.
* The next year I resolve to use the treadmill more often.
* This year I am going to resolve to sell the like-new treadmill.
I don’t know about yours but all my resolutions end up dissolving like a North Carolina
snow — quickly.
My resolution to this conundrum? This year I am resolute to be resolute in whatever I
resolve, if I resolve anything at all. For now, it is just to provide the news you can’t get
anywhere else.
New Year refusing to come in
NEW YORK — For the first time since the year-change from 1929 to1930, the New Year
is refusing to come in. Chronologists at Columbia University’s Department of
Dimensional Studies say this will leave the Old Year to serve another term — which
bodes for another disastrous year for the planet Earth.
“People often think of the New Year as innocent as a new-born babe, and that is how
he is commonly portrayed, but he’s been watching things incubate for nine months so
he has gained a little perspective — and he doesn’t seem to like what he’s seeing,”
said Dr. Milbourne Tique, an expert in astrometrics.
“We have had Old Years that wanted to stick around, sort of like football coaches Joe
Paterno and Bobby Bowden, when everybody else knew their time was up, but it is
pretty rare for a New Year to balk like this. But, to tell the truth, who could blame him,”
added Professor Tique.
“I guess we will just have to wait for the ball to drop to see what happens,” said Tique.
Fruitcake reveals “old earth”
ATLANTA — Scientists at the Georgian Institute of Technology have discovered a
wrapped and uneaten fruitcake that was carbon-dated at 8.4 billion years old, pushing
back estimates of the earth’s age by nearly four billion years from the previous estimate
of 4.54 billion years.
A combination of fingerprint and DNA analysis suggests that the fruitcake, which was
discovered in house of one of the researchers’ Aunt Mildred, was passed repeatedly
among a relatively small family and friendship circle, and may be one of the earliest
known examples of the now-common practice of re-gifting.
***
Advice to my New Year’s Eve readers
Do not spend New Year’s Day with a hangover. (Taking this advice, of course, begins
on New Year’s Eve.) I know I won’t start the New Year with a hangover because I don’t
drink much of anything alcohol laden, especially champagne. (Taking care with
champagne is a lesson learned from an episode in my younger years [circa 1976] in
which I got into a champagne drinking contest with an Austrian. I don’t remember who
won, but I do know who lost. I also don’t remember whether I had 13 glasses or 17
glasses of champagne — but it seems like it was a double-digit prime number. The
fact of the matter is I don’t remember much of anything from that afternoon or night —
but I do remember the next morning — and it makes my head throb just think about it.)
Note to my everyday readers
Regarding an earlier column, which referenced “questions you never want to be
asked,” my lovely, talented and clever wife explained how I should respond if she were
ever to ask me: “Do I look fat in this?” She says I should simply reply: “Do I look
stupid?”
Gary D. Gaddy, according to a reputable source, doesn’t look stupid.
A version of this story was published in the Chapel Hill Herald on Friday December 31,
2010.
Copyright 2010 Gary D. Gaddy
garygaddy.com 