This story originally appeared in the January 6, 2011, issue of The Trussville Tribune.
So here it is, the beginning of another year and as usual, I’ve made nary a New Year’s resolution. I learned a long time ago that for me, making resolutions is generally a waste of time and brainpower, both of which I have little enough to spare already.
Back when I did make resolutions, they’d be strictly followed the first two weeks of January, vaguely recalled by February and altogether forgotten by March. So I finally figured, why bother? But if I were to make any resolutions this year, here’s what they’d be…
Resolution No. 1: To shave my legs more than once this winter. If the length of the hair on my legs right now is any indication, I should have been born a sheepdog. But I rarely wear dresses anymore, especially during cold weather, so whenever the temperature outside drops below 65 degrees, leg shaving drops way down on the personal grooming list. (Guys, I know this is probably too much information for you, but believe me, the girls totally understand where I’m coming from.)
Last winter, I shaved my legs in February so I could wear a dress to a neighbor’s wedding without embarrassing myself. This winter? Well so far, we haven’t been invited to any weddings.
Resolution No. 2: To stop playing mind-numbing computer games. During the holidays, I stumbled upon an addictive Christmas-themed game, where the click of a mouse causes snowmen, gift boxes and trees to violently crash into one another then vanish from the screen.
The first time I played it, I was captivated by the power granted me to seek and destroy tiny Christmas ornaments. (I obviously harbor some unresolved aggression issues.) Before I knew it, I’d wasted an hour, but that didn’t stop me from playing a few more rounds and many more since.
As I mentioned earlier, time is not an unlimited commodity around here, so do I really want to waste it in a technology-induced trance? Maybe.
Resolution No. 3: To drink more water and less tea/coffee/soft drinks. This should be easy for me, and here’s why: A few weeks ago, I saw a Dr. Oz segment in which he gave tips for weight control. One of them was, “Don’t drink your calories,” meaning one should drink water, rather then all those high-caloric liquids I love so much. It occurred to me, not for the first time, that having a water cooler at the office would encourage me in such an endeavor.
Now my bosses are the best, always on the lookout for ways to make life better for their employees and rarely turning down a request for anything that might make our office an even more pleasant place to work. But for some reason, they’d always balked at the idea of a water cooler.
They happily supplied all the bottled water we could ever want, so it’s not like we did without. But several of us had long dreamed of filling our own larger containers with good drinking water, minimizing our carbon footprint by using fewer disposable bottles, and doing away with the onerous task of hauling in heavy cases of bottled water from the discount store across the street. Newly inspired by Dr. Oz, I felt compelled to somehow make that water cooler happen.
Long story short, the water cooler was installed in the break room last week. And all it took on my part was helping the bosses see that despite their initial reservations, they actually wanted a water cooler. If you call that being manipulative, well, you could be right. But hey, it worked. And that brings us to…
Resolution No. 4: To be less manipulative. Like that’s gonna happen.
So there they are, my resolutions for 2011. But remember, these are resolutions I’d make if I were going to make any – which I’m not – so I guess you could call these non-binding non-resolutions. Call them what you like; I call them forgotten.
Now if you’ll excuse me, my hairy legs and I are going to pour ourselves a big glass of sweet tea and play some computer games for a while.
Somewhere in the Middle 