(This article was originally published in November 1999)

Does this conversation sound familiar?

YOU: I am feeling slightly disturbed right now.

YOUR FRIEND: Why?

YOU: I don't know.

I'll tell you why. New Year's Eve is two months away and you don't have any concrete plans for the huge celebration. According to music videos lately, the real party is one where twelve thousand aesthetically pleasing extras gather at a massive parking lot to watch eight girls in hot-pants dance in synchronization. Who pays for this parking lot? Who convinces those girls to wear hot pants in January? Will there be a refreshment stand at this parking lot? As you can tell, there is a great deal of planning involved in organizing a real millennium party.

I am convinced the major problem facing our entrance into the new millennium is not the Y2K bug, but rather the pressure of making the transition meaningful. It seems that everyone I talk with is stressed about what to do on New Year's Eve 1999. Suddenly, a person's worth is related to their ability to be somewhere important on that momentous night (oh, and I heard the actual new millennium doesn't really kick in until 2001).

One of the impending results of this mania is, of course, financial ruin. I have heard of some people reserving hotel rooms on this night—a fantastic deal including soap and Bible (both wallet-size)—at the New Year's Eve special rate of one thousand dollars. All that so you can sleep under a sandpaper quilt and receive a rude awakening at eleven in the morning:

YOU: [answering] uuunnnhhh

FRONT DESK: Hello, Mr. Shoephlegm?

YOU: Yes. Well, actually it's Shepham. It's English.

FRONT DESK: Just a reminder, Mr. Shoephlegm, that if you don't leave in twenty minutes we will add three hundred dollars to your bill.

YOU: What?!

FRONT DESK: You must leave now.

YOU: But I'm still drunk and can't drive!

FRONT DESK: [dial tone]

Most tickets to organized New Year's parties cost hundreds of dollars. This is on top of the hotel charge. It is possible to pay three hundred dollars for a party of which you will likely remember nothing. Also, most of your friends won't have been able to afford such a party and you will be packed like a sardine in a room full of people just as alienated as yourself. Well, maybe not totally alienated; you will be acquainted by the fact you all spent ridiculous amounts of money to make your plans on New Year's Eve seem consequential.

And what if something goes wrong? What if, for instance, you contract a jaw disorder on the critical evening:

YOU: shee ant bee bong boo [I don't think I can make it to this party]

YOUR DATE: What? Open your mouth when you speak.

YOU: hee faw mel golong [It's my jaw]

YOUR DATE: What?

YOU: oolang shin bulag bolo [You go on without me]

YOUR DATE: What?

YOU: hom dun may bee una bob! [Look, don't make me angry!]

YOUR DATE: We spent five hundred dollars on this party!

YOU: bel hoo ben degal shee [I'll get my jacket]

Math problem: Intending on having a nap, Hosea falls asleep at 4:00pm on December 31st, 1999. Over-sleeping, he wakes up at 12:05am on January 1st, 2000. How much money has Hosea wasted? This is the stuff of nightmares lately. Things like alarms and dry-cleaning will occupy the largest part of the human brain for the next two months. Does anybody have any idea what this is doing to the level of productivity lately?

You can always spot people who have their New Year's plans in place. They promenade through their day glazed in debonair self-assurance. This drives the rest of 'planless' humanity completely insane. People that have somewhere to go, it would seem, have achieved some sort of nirvana. This is a terrible lie. The real enlightenment will occur when they wake up with a hangover on January 1st and realize that life is going to resume its terrestrial course regardless of what they did the night before. What person thinks that anyone will care about hearing his or her New Year's stories a month after the fact?

Some people I know are flying to other parts of the world to take in their celebration. As far as I can tell, the only advantage to this situation is bragging rights:

CO-WORKER: My husband and I went to Le Hotel de Ennui for New Year's.

YOU: [smugly] Really? I went to Chad.

CO-WORKER: Chad? Where's that?

YOU: Aw, you're just jealous.

Multiple choice. What is so wrong with welcoming the next century in your own country that you must spend a thousand dollars on a flight to, say, Greece? Is it so that you can:

a) see the Parthenon.

b) observe a unique fishing village at work.

c) feel the history emanating from the stone.

d) spend a night obliterated in a nasty hotel room— just enough time to acquire an intestinal parasite—and then fly home the next day.

This is also putting undue pressure on tourism bureaus everywhere:

PRIME MINISTER OF CHAD: Listen, we can make a small fortune if we attract New Year's carousers. Let's get some brochures made.

DIRECTOR OF TOURISM: Yes, but where will these revelers stay?

PRIME MINISTER OF CHAD: This is not my concern.

DIRECTOR OF TOURISM: Do we still have those pictures of Greek fishing villages?

When the clock strikes twelve and all the lights go out on civilization as we know it, would you rather be stuck in a room of panicked, stampeding strangers, or at home with your dog and eight thousand cans of tomato soup? Now, of course, you're pondering my redundancy—nobody wants to hear about this end of civilization stuff anymore. I agree. It's a non-issue. I am content to accept my fate like the cow that I am. But let us only mention such a possibility as an acknowledgment to the average person's fears rather than an empirical deduction.

I am not suggesting all of us stay huddled in shelters on New Year's Eve. I am merely proposing we all stop asking each other what we're doing. Let's figure it out in December like every other year so the endless barrage of questions can end and we can stress about Christmas instead. Christmas, once figuring prominently in our psyche, is now one less day we can do our dry-cleaning. Listen carefully for the following conversation this holiday season:

UNCLE HOSEA: Merry Christmas honey.

AUNT IMOGENE: Today is December 28th you idiot.

UNCLE HOSEA: Has anyone seen my other brown sock?

If you ask me, the best thing to do on New Year's Eve is be around the people you love—it doesn't matter where you are. If the only person you really love is yourself then lock yourself in a room with a bottle of Jack Daniel's. Whatever you do, don't let popular culture dictate your plans for December 31st.

By now you're wondering what my plans are. Anyone who would have the audacity to criticize a person's New Year's Eve plans must have a good one himself (right?). I have nothing to hide. I'm going to the top of one of the nearby mountains so I can watch my city burn from a safe distance. I might invite some aesthetically pleasing synchronized dancers. Anyone want to come?

Copyright © 1999 John Wesley

John Wesley spends most nights writing late into the early morning hours, often accompanied by his favorite Canadian hops and barley. Finding his inspiration in the thesaurus, his favorite topics include food groups and giraffes. John can be reached here.