Upper Deck: Resolutions Wrapped In Pantyhose

Steven Carter -- DB.com

   Unlike most people, I have never made my New Year’s resolutions on January 1. I always try to wait long enough into the New Year to put things into perspective. After all, what’s the point of rushing into resolutions that never seem to last past the 3^rd? This year I have reflected on my behavior over the past decade and decided that I do need to make some significant changes.

    Hence, my resolutions:

   *First, I spent much of the last decade worrying about things which in retrospect did not matter.  The fact is, try as I might I cannot recall a single one of the near disasters that I stewed about so much at the time. If you have friends and someone that loves you, you can count yourself as special, and special people don't have to worry. Ask anyone, I am special. My mom always said so, and so did the school I went to.

   *I don’t think people laugh much anymore. They spend too much time angry. Angry about politics or religion or who called them this name or that name. When I was younger, I spent quite a bit of time being concerned about politics, as an example, when in reality perhaps the thing that mattered the absolute least in my life was what politician served in what political office. No doubt, I will continue to worry about transient things that don’t really matter, after all I’m only human, but I resolve to blame other people for it and never to sit around moping about it.

   *It seems that everybody in today’s America is absolutely obsessed with losing weight. Every time I turn on the television or the radio there is a commercial about a new product that causes you to magically lose weight … “Pounds just melt away with Placebo Diet Drink”, or a new exercise device … Remember the Thigh Master with Suzanne Summers saying, “You can do this anywhere”?

    I tried it in a doctor's office and they asked me to leave.

   Seems like every year I resolve to lose weight, and fail miserably. This year I resolve to only hang around with fat people. At least I’ll look thinner.

   *I have noticed in the past my major undoing has been caused by a peculiar personality quirk that causes me to be, on occasion, just a little bit, uh, grumpy and perhaps the tiniest bit critical of other people. I am really disappointed I have allowed others to perceive me in such a way when in reality I am a very sensitive guy who is full of compassion toward each human being with whom I come in contact; even the morons who cut me off in traffic and obviously learned to drive by correspondence, even the idiot store clerks that talk on the telephone to their idiot little fat boyfriend or girlfriend instead of dealing with me a real live customer standing in front of them wanting to check out. Yes, even the stinking, low down, dirty telemarketer who calls at a really critical moment of a movie that I paid for on pay-per-view to ask me if I am aware that I am paying too much for long distance. I resolve to be more tolerant and more pleasant. I even resolve to smile as I choke the telemarketer.  I even resolve to be more patient with the trolls on the Dallasbasketball.com discussion board, and not call them names or ban them just for doing things I do all the time, unless they really annoy me.

    *Finally, I resolve to try to appreciate every moment. They truly are fleeting. This occurred to me as I was wrapping my water faucets with my wife's pantyhose the last few days. I was really appreciative of the odd look my new neighbor was giving me as he used those Styrofoam-cone things they sell at the home-improvement stores. … I meanwhile was using old pantyhose and wads of packing that I used on my recent move. I told him it was because they were out of the styromfoam things at the hardware store. The truth is, I am cheap. People spend way too much time what other people will think just because they have pantyhose on their water faucets. We should not be afraid to be different.

    In the Conclusion to “Walden,’’ Thoreau writes, "If a man loses pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. ..." So tolerate differences, and as you gaze around and find some man that is unhappy and alone, go ahead and mock, him he is probably an Eagles fan, and that is one kind of different we don't need.