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