Resolution Revolution

Now that we're two dress sizes away from having to form our resolutions for the New Year, I'd like to observe a moment of sarcasm for last year's goals. Looking back over this list from last year, I realize that I did accomplish one thing. See Resolution #3. I discovered that Taco Tiara handles the job nicely. (However they're not the A-Team for Leprechauns or buckets of gold)

The Resolution Trend is upon us, and much like the leg-warmer trend of the seventies, it crawls up your leg and leaves you with cold feet. But if Resolving is the thing to do, I may as well jump right in and point out my shortcomings. Lord knows if I don’t do it, the teenagers will.

Feel free to jump right in. The rules are simple: No setting goals that involve Paris Hilton in appearance or scope, no setting goals that involve such a vast amount of weight loss that a colon cleanse is indicated, and no setting goals that will prove detrimental to your overall lifestyle - honestly, it will not make you a better person to bake like Paula Deen. You’ll just spend more time in the kitchen, you’d have to expand to more extensive stretchy pants, and while you’re at it take a look at a recent picture. The woman is obviously a zombie. I haven’t seen eyes like that since Mystery Science Theatre 3000 ruled the airwaves.

So, with our ground rules, if not our sanity, intact, here are my Resolutions for the year:

1. To eat at least one meal without sharing with the dogs. How many bites does it take before the Labrador remembers that he still doesn’t like olives?

2. To go ahead and take the batteries out of the TV remote/game controller/digital camera before the boys beat me to it. Personal satisfaction is the name of the game here.

3. Find one easy-to-prepare meal that everyone in the family will eat. Perhaps I’ll also go in search of Leprechauns and buckets of gold.

4. To come home from any destination (including a trip to the mailbox) at least once without heading immediately to the bathroom. Honestly, predictability is so last year.

5. To go a full day without complaining about the speed of my Internet access, all the while bemoaning the days when people had to rely on the Pony Express or fax machines to deliver information.

6. Not to make more resolutions that I can feasibly accomplish. Which I automatically failed to do in Resolution Number One. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go make the dog a sandwich. Extra pastrami, no olives.

Lost and Found

I received a call from my son today. Early in the morning. On my cell phone. All indicators that a crisis has risen with the sun and was threatening to bring on gnashing of teeth and rending of garments before breakfast. He’s a wonderful guy, but stress transforms him from Dr. Jekyll into Mr. Hulk. (Hulk smash toast for getting too brown!)

It’s too early in the day for him to be concerned about the dinner menu, so there must be some other need like, say, the funnies are missing from the newspaper or he’s supposed to have a complete physical before soccer practice that afternoon.

Mothers can’t ignore hysterical children. At least not until they find out if there’s broken bones or missing teeth and whether the crisis is covered by insurance. I thought briefly of hurling the phone into the jaws of an oncoming minivan, but instead pressed the button and faced the mutant.

“Hello.”

“Mom, I can’t find my name tag.”

“I can’t find our house on a city map, but I don’t use your minutes.” It’s not that I don’t love the kid, but everything’s a crisis.

“I have to have my name tag to go to work.”

“They can’t tell it’s you from the joyous way you bound through the door in the morning?”

“Mom, it’s not funny.”

“Look son, it’s not like you work in the Oval Office and you’ve accidentally misplaced launch code numbers for the first volley of thermonuclear missiles. You work in a sandwich shop.”

“It’s not a sandwich shop. It’s a sub shop. The best sub shop in town.”

“Well can’t the best sub shop in town afford a new name tag?”

“That’s not the point. I don’t want to look unorganized.”

This from the kid who refers to the pile of T-shirts in the corner of his room as his “spare clothes.” Several generations of dust bunnies have called that pile home and lived a very nice life indeed.

“Have you looked in the dryer? I heard something making that clickety-clunk sound in there this morning.”

“I’ll look. Hold on.”

I paused at a traffic light and studied a man tracking his vacation itenerary on a shiny GPS while I mentally computed the number of minutes my cell phone plan was losing to dryer lint.

A relieved voice in my ear said, “Got it. Thanks, Mom.”

“It’s nothing. I live for these moments. It’s even better than getting AARP rates for my room at the retirement home.

“Huh?”

“I said you’re welcome.”

“Oh. You’re the best.”

“Yeah, that’s what they say down at the Piggly Wiggly when I have enough teenage boys in my living room to qualify for gangland activity and I buy enough hamburger to feed them all.”

“Mom?”

“Yes, son?”

“That reminds me. What’s for dinner?”