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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 acheived
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 their 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.
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