Through a Fog of Fever, an Antihistamine Transfusion, and a Nice Thick Glaze of Nyquil

Predator Press

[LOBO]

The annual tradition of facing a New Year with a list of self-improvement goals, or “resolutions,” is the result of events that can be traced back many, many years. So many years, in fact, most of them happened before I was even born, and therefore are considered inconsequential by numerous historians and scholars.

But one cannot trivialize history; indeed, “he who forgets history is doomed to repeat it.”

Like that “doomed to be repeat it” thing? I just made it up -I made it up to clearly underline the inherent dangers associated with repeating stuff! Due to a “lather, rinse, repeat” typo on a shampoo bottle, within two weeks my buddy Barbarossa lost all his hair and eyebrows, and polished top of his skull eggshell-thin. But despite this, the vast and sinister Paul Mitchell empire stubbornly fights the legislation to correct the phrase to “lather, rinse, STOP!” in a conspiracy to avoid an embarrassing and expensive worldwide shampoo recall. Mark my words: one day Paul Mitchell will pay for what his crimes, and pay dearly. But, like in any good democracy, there is a lot of paperwork to fill out before you can go and kill people. It's for our own protection supposedly.

But rather than bore you with "The Historic Origins of the New Year’s Resolution" blah blah, I've decided to bore you guys some good ideas for your own list of potential resolutions … resolutions that would make the world a better place, and possibly reduce my complaining about it:

Resolution Suggestion #1: Stop taking your babies on airplanes.

C’mon you self-centered pricks -this should be a no-brainer! The health and welfare of your spawn do not outweigh my right to travel in comfort. You can’t part with that thing for five minutes? Heck, you haven’t even had it that long!

I have it on good authority humans are a robust, hearty breed: civilization has been around for hundreds and hundreds of years without you givin’ it bottles and changing diapers and so forth, so a few weeks away is really no big deal. Babies are a lot like cats scientifically. Smelly, noisy cats. Yes. If you feed them once, they never leave ... and every few days you'll only have to do the whole food thing all over again to shut them up. And you gotta buy babies stuff a lot, whereas cats are aloof and unattached. Come to think of it, if you put a baby and a cat in the wild, the baby would adopt the cat. But you know what cats would do? Cats would eat the baby!

Alright ... forget I said anything about cats. But babies, like cats, need character, and you getting away for some well-deserved 'R & R' is a great way to build some. For the duration of most holiday trips, well-fed and watered babies in a fenced in backyard will do nicely if weather permits. And if you don’t have a fenced in backyard, perhaps you should use the money from your trip on one instead -thereby sparing me being trapped with the bundle of happiness you have wrought upon the Earth anyway.

But I suspect if you couldn't afford to get a fenced in backyard and travel, you probably weren’t able to afford having babies in the first place ... your New Year's Resolution list should probably include something about promiscuity too. Try something like "This year, instead of waving them around in the air like I'm trying to guide an airplane, I'm going to keep my legs sitting in the back seat of the convertible."

Whore.

Resolution Suggestion #2: Please start smoking again.

I’m sick of you sanctimonious non-smoking pricks kicking me out of restaurants and bars, et cetera.

You know what? I’m going to make a place where smoking is mandatory. It’ll have all kinds of cool stuff in it -like rides and junk- and we won’t let you in. Hah! One day you’ll be all like “Hey, where are those cool people that used to hang around our building entrance?”

But we will be long gone.

Years later, repressed, destitute, and alone, once you've realized that binge-eating tumbleweeds and soy beans will never fill that empty void inside, you’ll search us out.

“Let us in!” you will sob. But a guy on a megaphone in a tower will be all like “Sorry. Can’t. Today is the Superbowl. And if I gotta make an exception for you, I would have to make an exception for everybody." And as you glance down at your extremely healthy chest and realize it is dotted with little wavering red lights, he'll go on to say "Now unless you precious little daisies of Nature are going to fire up a cigarette or something, please step back a few hundred miles from the facilities. Move along.”

I imagine, to satisfy an innate human curiosity, our utopic self-exile won’t go on forever; future generations of us smokers will go on educational safaris to see you in submarine-like vehicles with wheels, pointing out your still-exposed skeletons in the sand dunes to our children through a thick porthole. “See kids?" we'll say. "That’s what happens when you don’t smoke.” And there will always be some smartypants fat kid in the back raising his hand, “Those poor people. How come we didn’t eat them?” And we adults will respond in hushed, low tones sure to inspire nightmares: “Because all the exercise and lowfat diets rendered them flavorless, soulless husks!”

In the fat kid's defense, I'm sure we would have become bored of eating veal and baby sea lions, and at some point would have made some attempts at preparing a decent meal of you health freaks ... you know, with a fine Mornay sauce and a red wine or perhaps deep fried on a stick with a zesty Ranch dip. But all your sucking up to Mother Nature would probably pay off with some kind of defense mechanism such as smelling like boiled cabbage or something. Blech. I hate that smell! And it probably takes days to get your house smelling back to normal once you've cooked a health nut ... I mean Febreze or no Febreze, it just lingers and cloys in your couches, drapes and clothing for what seems like forever.

Screw it. We'll just hunt you for sport.

Anyway I’m bored with making my list now.

But most importantly, I have completed my own personal New Year’s resolution: to write a post including Barbarossa.

Isn’t ‘Barbarossa’ a cool name? When I met him he introduced himself incessantly, almost bragging through his big, pearly-white grin.

“Hello, my name is Barbarossa.”

“No it isn’t,” says Barbarossa’s doctor. “That’s half the reason he is here.”

“His name isn’t Barbarossa?” I ask.

“No. Actually, no one knows his real name.”

"Then how do you know it isn't Barbarossa?"

"Because he's in a straight jacket."

“Well this isn’t very convenient,” I says. “As author and narrator of this post, I can’t exactly call you ‘Barbarossa’s doctor’ if he isn’t ‘Barbarossa.’”

“Well, you’re pretty screwed then,” says the guy who isn’t Barbarossa’s doctor.

“Hello, my name is Barbarossa,” beams the guy who isn’t Barbarossa.

“No it isn’t,” said the guy that isn’t Barbarossa’s doctor.

“This is pissing me off,” I says flatly. “Have you tried giving him Napoleon pastries?”

“Ah,” says the guy that isn’t Barbarossa’s doctor with mild interest. “The old 'You are what you eat' trick, eh? He eats one, and then becomes Napoleon?”

“Yes.”

“That’s crazy.”

“I’m fine with calling him Napoleon,” I argue.

The guy that isn’t Barbarossa’s doctor rolls his eyes. “Oh man please tell me you’re kidding,” he pleads. “Jesus, you can’t throw a rock in here without hitting a Napoleon. I thought it was kind of refreshing to have a Barbarossa for a change.”

“Hello, my name is Barbarossa,” beams the guy that isn’t Barbarossa.

“No it isn’t,” said the guy that isn’t Barbarossa’s doctor.

“I’m calling him Barbarossa,” I says with finality.

“Please to meet you,” says the guy that is once again Barbarossa.

“Alright,” the doctor shrugs, sighing in resolve. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

“Why is he in here -besides the Barbarossa thing?” I ask Barbarossa’s doctor.

“Because he is in a straight jacket,” he replies.

“Why is he in a straight jacket?”

“Because he is in here.”

“Huh. That’s good science, and pretty efficient," I conclude. "Doctor, I salute you. If not for your hard work and dedication, Paul Mitchell would have completely destroyed this poor man.”

“Hello, my name-”

“Uh, ‘Barbarossa.’ Got that.” I says.

“Pleased to meet you,” says Barbarossa.

"Well it wasn't easy," says Barbarosa's doctor. "It took six weeks to get him where he didn't smell like coconuts."

“Is he dangerous?” I ask Barbarossa’s doctor curiously.

“Only if you’re in our Acrophobia treatment. He likes to push the patients down the stairs during the therapy.”

“Does that cure them?”

“I don’t know,” shrugs the doc. “We don’t go down there anymore. Too much screaming. It’s hell on the nerves.”