Rules for Living in the New Year

Perusing through a bookstore one Christmas, I picked up a volume titled The Complete Life’s Little Instruction Book.   Hoping to find inspiration for the pending New Year, and avoiding the inevitable unloading of my wallet at the checkout counter, I thumbed through it. 

I was seeking enlightenment. I thought that perhaps instead of making several lame resolutions that I'd never keep, I'd take some advice:

#2 Have a dog.  I would like to add get rid of the cat.

#70 Whistle.  But only in the dark and only if I am alone.

#74 Eat prunes.  And, while I'm at it, I'll throw caution to the wind and eat some beets too.  This is like jumping out of a plane with a parachute or climbing Mt. Everest, I just haven’t lived until I've done it once.  And, oh, the stories I will have to tell the grandkids.

#84 Forget the Joneses.  Unless, of course, they are kin and have some of those birthdays I'm supposed to remember or, worse, blackmail pictures from my bad-hair years.

#90 Refill ice cube trays.  In what decade was this book written?

#95 Never let anyone ever see you tipsy.  When I feel tipsy coming on, I'll excuse myself to the bathroom with my bottle of wine and not come out until I'm knee walking, hardly talking drunk.

#110 Never use profanity.  Until I've practiced putting the right emphasis on the words in private, first. 

#148 Learn to handle a pistol and a rifle safely.  No duh.  I’d hate to miss my husband and hit the dog.
         
#210 Observe the speed limit.  So that when the officer stops me for lead-footing it and asks if I know what the speed limit is, I know the right answer.
  
#246 Wave at children on school buses.  And say a prayer for the bus driver.

#264 Don’t gamble.  With the exception of the prunes and the beets, naturally.

#289 Find some other way of proving your manhood than by shooting defenseless animals and birds.  I hate to say it, but I think I’m getting advice for life from a girlie-man.

#401 Don’t ever watch hotdogs or sausage being made.  Any excuse to stay out of the kitchen.

#557 Take along two big safety pins when you travel so you can pin the drapes shut in your motel room.  Hubba.  Hubba.

#582 When asked to play the piano, do it without making excuses or complaining.  Well, okay, but only if everyone promises to listen without making excuses or complaining.

#921 Go to donkey basketball games.  ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
  
#1316 Never tell anybody they can’t sing.  Think how boring the American Idol auditions would be.
  
#1392 Don’t force machinery.  No means no.
  
#1449 Share the remote control.  No way.  If I ever get my hands on it, I’m not giving it back, even if I have to forgo sleep to win.

#1487 Hug a cow.  It’s in the book.  I swear.
  
#1546 Talk to your plants.  But if anyone sees you hugging the cow or hears you talking to your plants, or you tell others about your meaningful relationships with bovine and flora, brace yourself for a rocky year.
            

Christmas Update

The scene at my house last weekend:

What Kind of Finch am I, I asked myself?

"Today, we're taking down the Christmas tree," I announced to my family. It being January 6th, and all, my neighborhood hadn't even a teeniest reminder that Santa swooped through, leaving mounds of cardboard boxes in the green recycling bins, barely 12 days prior. No indicators of Christmas past, that is, except my house, where my children continued to dutifully plug in the dancing lights each evening.

A collective, "No!" erupted from my spouse and children. "Please, please, Mama, can we keep it. Just one more week," begged my 12 year-old. "Please," chimed in his siblings and father.

This is it, I told myself, we're going to be like the Finches, with a dead, brown, decorated tree in our living room well into the off-season; all of us walking past it day after day no longer even bothered by its presence, and the kids even snacking on candy canes harvested from needleless branches. I refer to the Running with Scissors Finches, of course, as opposed to the To Kill a Mockingbird Finches.

(If you have not read Running with Scissors yet, spare yourself from it, and read If Mama Don't Laugh, It Ain't Funny instead. If you have, are, or plan to read it, then you must also read If Mama Don't Laugh, It Ain't Funny to reassure yourself, post Scissors, that crazy isn't necessarily pathological and funny doesn't have to be shocking.)

Well, I found myself faced with a serious decision to make. Would I be an Atticus Finch, sticking to my resolve, my morals, my scruples, my sense of right and wrong, or would I be an Agnes Finch, losing complete control over my household and the people in it?

Call me Agnes, because I caved. The tree stands downstairs right now, lights flashing like a Vegas disco. Shoot, the next thing I know, the kids will pound a hole through my kitchen ceiling and I won't even glance heavenward for help. Agnes incarnate, I won't know I need it.

The scene in my house this evening, January 12:

All children, spouse included, have been assured the Grinch, the pre-roastbeast-carving Grinch, will steal Christmas and dump it off of Mt. Crumpet (or at least drag it out to the street). Because I would rather be a Grinch than a Finch any day.