No holiday has the same capacity to depress as New Year’s Eve. As you recover from the giddy bacchanalia of Christmas, you may be dismayed to discover that both your finances and your pants are tighter. Furthermore, many family members have become insufferable without the obligatory seven trips to the punchbowl, and you’re beginning to feel that your life is simply a series of accidents culminating in the unremarkable and inevitable accident of your death. You just hope that this all will wrap up quickly or at the very least, that you’ll have a decent party to go to so that you may dodge the bullet of slumping on the couch watching Dick Clark’s Rockin’ New Year’s Eve, featuring KC and The Sunshine Band, yet a-fucking-gain. New Year’s Eve is a time of year that invites morbid navel-gazing and resolutions, when what we really need is some exuberant finger-pointing and a revolution. Instead of resolving to improve yourself, a foolish and empty enterprise that can only end in defeat, why not help others to amend their personal failings with some helpful hints? This is a project that you can attack with far more enthusiasm than any half-hearted, mumble-mouthed desire to “Volunteer 10 hours a week,” “Eat more whole grains,” or “Stop beating my wife”. Why would you want to change the glorious, self-realized asshole you are when you could be helping someone else on the seldom-trod pathway to being less of a personal irritant?
Mind you, it may be a more difficult task to generate due concern on the part of the person whom you’ve resolved to make better. The person in question may believe that he or she is fait accompli - that there is no need for her to stop sucking air between her teeth in imitation of a disgruntled cockatoo; that indeed, the world is smiling as he parades about in a bathing costume made entirely of stretchy yellow dental floss. I suggest that you start out by sending them a New Year’s resolution as an anonymous letter, composed entirely from cut-out magazine lettering for that ominous ransom note look. Underline anything important several times in blood or at the very least, in a thick red marker. In composing the note, you should strive for clarity, specificity and foreboding. For example, you might write,
“HEATHER:
It has come to our attention that in 2006 you frequently did not flush the toilet after urinating. We understand that you are attempting to save water, but this is highly displeasing to us, Heather. In addition, we have noted that you have been negligent in restocking the toilet paper roll once the last one has been exhausted. A single desultory scrap of tissue dangling from the cardboard does not constitute a sufficient amount for wiping, Heather. We view this as most inconsiderate, most UNSATISFACTORY behavior on YOUR part. In the New Year, we expect that you will strive to comply with better sanitary standards in your washroom usage, OR ELSE. WE KNOW WHERE YOU PEE, HEATHER. Do not do anything that you will regret.”
After sending the preliminary New Year’s resolution, you should pass a few weeks in quiet observation of your subject. Has he or she taken pains to rectify the obnoxious behavior? Have these efforts been continual and consistent or has there been some back-sliding? Change can be a difficult process, and so it may be necessary for you to leave your resolutionee small reminders such as post-it notes with the words “OR ELSE, HEATHER!” spotted in what is either dried blood or lasagna stains, the mangled body of a baby bird, or a large pumpkin impaled by a butcher knife. These shows of support and encouragement will help validate your subject’s attempts and provide impetus for lasting improvement.
However, in some extreme cases, more effort may be necessary on your part. Have you rented the movie SAW lately? Hell, even SAW II or SAW III will do in a pinch. Like the sensible philanthropist, Jigsaw, what you need to do is build a diabolical torture machine to coerce your subject into re-envisioning his or her lifestyle. Heather will learn to restock the toilet roll, because if she doesn’t, she will be cut to shreds by the three razor blades that have been surgically implanted inside her bladder. Creating a suitably gruesome device is essential. After all, people remember only 20% of what they read but they remember 90% of what they do and even that percentage is sure expand when there are sharp, poking objects involved. If your resolutionee survives, you will have set him on the road to success. Should he die in excruciating pain, well, at least there’s a valuable lesson to be learned somewhere in all this gore. And isn’t personal growth what New Year’s is all about?
* For some reason, creating and enforcing a New Year’s resolution for a government has been called “Ter-ror-ism” and apparently it is frowned upon. If you really want to fuck up state affairs, it’s probably safer to campaign for a seat as MPP and save your threatening letters and deathtraps for long weekends and leisurely lunches.
Mind you, it may be a more difficult task to generate due concern on the part of the person whom you’ve resolved to make better. The person in question may believe that he or she is fait accompli - that there is no need for her to stop sucking air between her teeth in imitation of a disgruntled cockatoo; that indeed, the world is smiling as he parades about in a bathing costume made entirely of stretchy yellow dental floss. I suggest that you start out by sending them a New Year’s resolution as an anonymous letter, composed entirely from cut-out magazine lettering for that ominous ransom note look. Underline anything important several times in blood or at the very least, in a thick red marker. In composing the note, you should strive for clarity, specificity and foreboding. For example, you might write,
“HEATHER:
It has come to our attention that in 2006 you frequently did not flush the toilet after urinating. We understand that you are attempting to save water, but this is highly displeasing to us, Heather. In addition, we have noted that you have been negligent in restocking the toilet paper roll once the last one has been exhausted. A single desultory scrap of tissue dangling from the cardboard does not constitute a sufficient amount for wiping, Heather. We view this as most inconsiderate, most UNSATISFACTORY behavior on YOUR part. In the New Year, we expect that you will strive to comply with better sanitary standards in your washroom usage, OR ELSE. WE KNOW WHERE YOU PEE, HEATHER. Do not do anything that you will regret.”
After sending the preliminary New Year’s resolution, you should pass a few weeks in quiet observation of your subject. Has he or she taken pains to rectify the obnoxious behavior? Have these efforts been continual and consistent or has there been some back-sliding? Change can be a difficult process, and so it may be necessary for you to leave your resolutionee small reminders such as post-it notes with the words “OR ELSE, HEATHER!” spotted in what is either dried blood or lasagna stains, the mangled body of a baby bird, or a large pumpkin impaled by a butcher knife. These shows of support and encouragement will help validate your subject’s attempts and provide impetus for lasting improvement.
However, in some extreme cases, more effort may be necessary on your part. Have you rented the movie SAW lately? Hell, even SAW II or SAW III will do in a pinch. Like the sensible philanthropist, Jigsaw, what you need to do is build a diabolical torture machine to coerce your subject into re-envisioning his or her lifestyle. Heather will learn to restock the toilet roll, because if she doesn’t, she will be cut to shreds by the three razor blades that have been surgically implanted inside her bladder. Creating a suitably gruesome device is essential. After all, people remember only 20% of what they read but they remember 90% of what they do and even that percentage is sure expand when there are sharp, poking objects involved. If your resolutionee survives, you will have set him on the road to success. Should he die in excruciating pain, well, at least there’s a valuable lesson to be learned somewhere in all this gore. And isn’t personal growth what New Year’s is all about?
* For some reason, creating and enforcing a New Year’s resolution for a government has been called “Ter-ror-ism” and apparently it is frowned upon. If you really want to fuck up state affairs, it’s probably safer to campaign for a seat as MPP and save your threatening letters and deathtraps for long weekends and leisurely lunches.
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