New Year Resolutions

It’s that time of the year again when there are only two annoying questions on the tips of most people’s tongues.

Pesky Question # 1 – What are you doing for New Year’s Eve?

Pesky Question # 2 – What are your New Year Resolutions?

Since tomorrow will be the last day of the year, it is a blessed relief to know that as soon as the sun’s ray decide to peep out on January 01, the first exasperating question will be flushed down with the previous night’s spirits and finger foods. Burp!

Which brings us to the second issue, which promises, like a leading telephone service provider, to follow you around, like a faithful puppy. Except in this case, the pug in question turns out to be a maddening greyhound, insisting on leaping at your throat at regular intervals, and causing you to choke and splutter, see red, and purse your lips, lest the foam and froth decide to trickle down your mouth – not a pretty sight at all.

So when your brother’s friend’s aunt’s son’s pal poses the same question to you, as did the fifty-fourth person before him, I can’t blame you for wanting to:

a) bang your head on the nearby white wall
b) ask to be taken to a clinic with white walls, so that your frazzled nerves can be healed under constant medical care
c) kill the person asking the offending person
d) all of the above

There are some people who take the annoyance to new level altogether. To your nonchalant answer that you repeat year after year, and which goes to the tune of, “Oh me? My New Year Resolution is to not make any resolutions,” prepare to be subjected to an incredulous look from the enquirer, who has obviously perfected the look one gives upon being told that the other has just returned from the Himalayas, after a brief stay with a Yeti. Some sympathetic clucks may follow. And unless you are one of those who are adept at running away, be prepared to be assaulted by not a bird’s eye view, but an in-depth, blow by blow, twenty-page report of his resolutions.

After what seems to you like hours, you realize that you have a faraway, glazed look in your eyes, your neck has somewhat of a crick, what with the constant nodding, and what were two feet, feel like they have been anesthetized, or worse – amputated. Your pointed looks at your wrist do nothing to desist the eager resolution-taker-and-speaker from sharing his precious resolutions, and he’s not even half-way through.
Your excuses sound contrived even to you, and you beat that hasty retreat, but not without that dull, ringing sensation whirring constantly in your ears, which you realize, with a shudder, is the aftereffect of that annoyance’s droning.

Tired and more than a tad exasperated, you make your way back home. A relaxed shower, and your mood is already lifting. Thoughts of the evening with that special someone fill your mind, and the edges of your mouth are almost creasing into a smile.

And then it happens. One ring. You pick your phone. It is that nauseating friend from college whom you would rather not speak with, for reasons best left unspoken and unnamed. Maybe it won’t be all that bad – boy! are you optimistic. Sighing, you pick the phone. Just as you feel that the conversation is not steering to irksome topics, bang! It comes.

“Hey, made any New Year Resolutions? You know what I’m gonna do…..?”

No wonder that smile curled up into a sneer!