For the year 2023, I made 12 New Year’s resolutions. I’ve already broken every single one. Here is the dirty dozen:
1. In a restaurant, when the waitress sees my totally cleaned plate and asks how I enjoyed my meal, I will not say, “I didn’t like it one bit.” According to a survey I read, they hear this all the time and they do not think it is funny.
2. When people ask, “How’s Barney?” (my famous dog who passed 20 years ago), I will stop saying, “Still dead.” No one finds this amusing, and they think I am an insensitive jerk.
3. I will stop salting what Mary Ellen makes for dinner before I even taste it. In future years, I will tackle my addiction to pepper, Heinz 57, and teriyaki sauce.
4. I will put a cover on food when I heat it in the microwave, so the meal doesn’t end up as splatter all over the inside (amendment to resolution: I’ll try to remember not to use aluminum foil).
5. For stocking stuffers next Christmas, I will not buy kitchen gadgets for my wife that she will never use. We have 11 devices engineered to open jar lids. None of them work.
6. When Mary Ellen asks me what I want for dinner, I will not say, “I don’t care.” I still won’t care, but I will stop saying it.
7. When someone says, “You remind me of Dick Wolfsie,” I will not jokingly reply, “I’m sorry to hear that. I found him very annoying on TV.” I will stop this because when I have said it, many people have agreed with me.
8. I will not cut the crust off a sandwich, realize I’m still hungry, and then eat the crust.
9. I will not cheat when I play Words with Friends. Last year, with the help of a word-finder website, I placed “oxazepam” (a drug) on just the right squares for a whopping 192 points. Now, no one will play with me, so I call the game, ‘Words All By Myself.’
10. I will not open the fridge looking for a snack and stare for two minutes hoping that some miracle will appear, like a corned beef sandwich on rye.
11. I will not whistle in my downstairs office while writing my column. My wife says that if I whistle while I work, I sound like one of the Seven Dwarfs. Which dwarf am I? See the next resolution.
12. When I watch a movie with Mary Ellen, I will not nod off, because when I wake up, I make her tell me what I missed”
“Mary Ellen, why are those people jumping off the ship?”
“It’s the Titanic, Sleepy. I hope you had a good nap.”
