Tonight I’m sitting here at home reflecting on the success of my last year’s New Year’s Resolution, which was to never, ever come up with New Year’s Resolutions again. It worked out well, if by “worked out well” you mean “failed to accomplish anything of value at all”. Which I do. So, yay me.
This New Year’s Eve I’ll be home with my family, thinking about all the people who bothered to put up a Christmas tree and who will spend all day tomorrow lugging decorations back into the attic and I’ll wonder “What is wrong with those people?” Then I’ll tuck Hailey in bed and drink enough to dull the pain of my shoulder, which I’m fairly certain I dislocated trying to do the “new cough”. FYI…the “old cough” is the normal one that’s totally worked fine for the last thousand years. It’s the one where you cover your mouth with your hands when you cough. The “new cough” is the one where you cough into the crook of your elbow because apparently that spreads less germs except when I try to “new cough” into my elbow I’m not actually flexible enough to do without pulling a muscle and then even when I do make it, my elbow isn’t big enough to contain my mouth so spit flies all over everyone nearby. I’m honestly not even sure how the rest of the world is doing the new cough unless they all have arms like flying squirrels or possibly everyone is just fucking with me and I’m the only one actually doing it. Also, I’m getting lipstick all over my sleeve and I guess I’m not stretching enough before because now my shoulder is all sore like I have Polio. Also, I might actually have Polio. That’s the kind of year this has been. The kind where you may or may not have Polio. I guess what I’m trying to say here is can we go back to the “old cough” in 2010? Because my shoulder hurts like hell. Plus, when other people do the new cough I automatically think they’re raising their arm to backhand me and so I involuntarily flinch and raise my arm to hit them back and then everyone feels awkward. Or maybe we can compromise and the “new-new cough” can be coughing down the inside of your shirt. Which is kind of awesome because then your shirt becomes an automatic hanky and the lipstick stains will go inside the shirt so they’ll be less visible. Plus, all the contagious germs stay on your boobs so if you get molested while you’re sick you’ll totally be able to identify your attacker later by his cough. Or by his dislocated arm in case he doesn’t get the word about the “new-new cough”.
So I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’m pretty sure I have Polio. And that I wish you a wonderful New Year. Mostly the last part.
Happy New Year, my sweet friends. I love you and your flying-squirrel elbows.
Comment of the day: Ok, absolutely true story of the new cough gone awry. Last night I’m at a Chinese restaurant–not that the cuisine type matters here–and this kid of about 9 or 10 does the new cough thing. Only instead he sneezed. Snot ALL over his sweater. He was at a table with his entire family, grandparents, whatever, and he was covered in snot. The entire table stopped eating and just stared at him. He looks at his mom and said, “I just did what they told us to in school!” and she said, “Yeah, ok, in the future, if you have a napkin RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU, sneeze into that.” Words to live by. ~ etain