New Year's resolutions are made to be broken

New Year's resolutions are made to be broken

JAKARTA (JP): Not zero hour of any ol' day, of course, but the
one that sees out the old year and announces the arrival of the
new. Trouble is, you kind of forget about those resolutions about
five seconds after having made them. How come?

Well, for one thing, let's consider the circumstances. There I
was, having forgathered with a bunch of like-minded persuns
(please note the "u" - you'll see why a little later) an hour or
three before midnight at the height of the feast of reason and
the flow of soul, enhanced by generous drops of several kinds of
liquid which would cause fire and brimstone to rain down on our
heads from certain quarters who have self-styled themselves the
moral guardians of society. I don't know what Nina, our hostess,
had put in the ocean of punch she'd concocted but it was
ambrosial -- never mind that we would wake up the next mid-day
with that dark brown taste (thank you, Eartha!).

The get-together of real pals on New Year's Eve has been
something of a tradition among about a dozen of us for the past
five years or so. It's not that we're constantly on each other's
doorstep throughout the year; it's just that we seem to have lost
the taste for hooting it up at one or other of the functions in
the five-star hotels for which you get bilked of several hundred
thousand rups a throw. Besides, anyone venturing out in the
Jakarta traffic on New Year's Eve must be possessed of a strong
self-destructive streak.

Anyway, to get back to New Year's resolutions. They tend to be
made when you're sort of tipsy, and as the liquid keeps flowing -
especially after duty-free champagne bottles are opened at
midnight - they, the resolutions, get so serious and heavy they'd
merit mention by Ripley if they were ever carried out to the
letter. "I", declared Benny (Nina's husband), trying to swallow a
hiccup, "will be a better, neater person." "You", riposted his
wife, "will be nothing of the kind." "Why not?" "You'd be
boring and impossible to live with."

Jono resolved to do something to get rid of the urge to
collect green bottles, to which someone unkindly suggested that
he'd better not because it would take the rest of his life to pay
the shrinks' bills. "Stick to your bottles, sweetheart, it may be
cheaper." Which, as Nina suggested, could well be a moot point
because he'd have to get increasingly bigger houses to store the
confounded things. Arguments followed about Jono's particular
craving, ranging from declarations of him being an
environmentalist (i.e. getting rid of unwanted objects) to
questions about his early childhood potty training, to say
nothing of certain Freudian tendencies!

There were many more such crazy resolutions, and when eyes
stared in my direction I said that I'd try to be politically
correct and also cure myself of the desire to become something of
a computer freak. "You've been reading those little politically
correct fairy tales and Christmas stories, haven't you?" Mira,
Jono's partner, said. "Yep," I answered, "from now on it's going
to be persunkind, not mankind."

Like all the other resolutions, mine could barely be heard,
drowned in the shrieks and gales of laughter that accompanied the
pros and cons. As for becoming a computer freak, I was told not
to worry too much because they (my "friends") would see to it,
with whips if necessary, that I resisted any such urges.

You live it up, you pay for it later. The very next day, in
fact, around, say, one p.m., when you wake up bleary-eyed and
with a morning mouth to end all morning mouths. You ask yourself
what you've done to deserve all this, and on top of it all,
there's no Alka Seltzer or Eno fruit salt in the house.

Then you start a mad scramble to put in order whatever needs
to be put in order because there will be an avalanche of various
relations descending on you. Are the necessary crockery and
cutlery clean? Are there enough goodies around? Do you have
saccharin for aunt Rika who's diabetic? And hide the bottles of
burgundy because cousin Nando is far too fond of a tipple than
could ever be good for him.

So while you dash hither and thither to get organized you
curse whoever it was that declared the first of January a
holiday, a day to take things easy. It's nothing of the kind at
all; if anything it's Jan. 2 (and Jan. 3, and maybe even Jan. 4)
that should be the day of rest and relaxation.

But there then comes a knock on your front door, and there's
aunt Rika, Nando and an assortment of nephews and nieces bleating
"Happy New Year, oom Jak." And somehow last night's hangover
gradually disappears. Happy New Year to you all.

-- Jak Jaunt