My New Year's Resolutions

Looking through the newspapers, magazines and blogs, it appears that I must be one of the few sentient people on the planet who has not announced what things they intend to do or not do during the coming year –– that noble list of good intentions known as “New Year’s Resolutions.” I believe I saw where even North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il has a resolutions list out. Resolution No. 1 was to launch a successful nuclear strike on another nation, while No. 2 was something about eating more fiber.

I am nothing if not “with it,” so I have decided to take the path of least resistance and go with the cultural flow. Here, then, is my list of New Year’s Resolutions for 2010.

1. Every list of resolutions (except those of crazed tinhorn despots) seems to start off with a vow to lose weight. In that spirit, I commit myself to a target I can hit. To prevent ingesting too much fat in 2010, I promise not to attempt to eat anything larger than my head.

2. As a further aid toward lowering my caloric intake, I resolve to stick to my core culinary principles by maintaining my decades-long refusal to knowingly eat all but microscopic portions of onions, bell peppers, eggplant, wax beans, liver, stewed tomatoes, celery and sushi.

3. Despite constant peer pressure from other parents in this overly permissive, affluent and acquisitive society, in 2010 I will resist all temptations to spoil my children with expensive frivolities such as new cars, winter ski vacations, air-conditioned summer camps, high-priced tickets to sporting and cultural events, and any electronic devices newer and nicer than the ones I have. One day my kids will thank me for this.

4. As I am now much more knowledgeable about the dangers of sun-induced skin cancer, and am also more mature than I once was, realizing the folly of physical vanity, I once and for all abandon my dreams of becoming a swimsuit model.

5. As a compromise with my neighbors and that rude man from the public health department, I resolve not to allow the grass in my lawn to grow more than 12 inches high, regardless of season. (I hope all of you are happy, because this is as far as I’m willing to go for the sake of a few busybody enviromaniac neatniks).

6. As I value both my finances and my mental health, I resolve not to pay money to see any movie whose title begins with “Attack of the,” “Revenge of the” or “Return of the”, or any movie whose title ends in “Movie,” such as “Funny Movie,” “Violent Movie,” “Car Crash Movie,” or “Incredibly Stupid, Moronic, Juvenile and Derivative Movie.” I furthermore will restrict my watching of new vampire movies to those whose main characters are middle-aged men with widow’s peaks who speak with bad Eastern European accents.

7. As a responsible citizen who seeks to keep himself out of the public eye, I resolve to not do the following during 2010: lock anyone in an electrical closet, show up uninvited to a White House reception, interrupt someone’s acceptance speech at an awards banquet, or enrage any woman who both has physical access to me and knows how to swing a mean golf club.