I don’t make New Year’s resolutions because they’re
redundant. I try to start every day of every year thinking I’m going to do the
right thing. It just doesn’t always work.
What I AM going to offer here are some resolutions for
everybody else. In other words, if you’re going to be around me in 2017, here
are some things I hope you will do or avoid:
(1) First off, don’t tell me we need more instant replay in sports.
Instant replay is the anti-christ. It was bad enough when replay turned basketball
into a two-and-a-half-hour review-a-thon and football into four hours of men in
striped shirts trying to determine what constitutes a catch, but now they’ve
gone and effed up baseball, too, as if baseball wasn’t slow enough already.
My opinion is that replay officials do nothing but kill
momentum and slow down games while getting it wrong approximately 50% of the
time. If anybody is going to be wrong half the time, I’d prefer that it be the
officials on the field. At least they’re in the stadium and not in some room
hundreds of miles away looking at a questionable camera angle and with undetermined
depth of field. Besides, we all get it wrong some of the time.
(2) Next, don’t call here and try to sell me anything. I mean nothing.
Nada. Zero. Zilch. I know how to buy stuff and I’m pretty good at it. If I
wanted it badly enough and could afford it, I own it already. I’m not donating
to your cause, either. I worked for a non-profit foundation for years and I’m
well-versed in the process of donating to causes. I think I can handle it
without any help.
(3) And don’t ever call me at 7 o’clock in the morning. If you’re
sitting in a call center in Bangladesh, for heaven’s sake buy yourself a world map
or set your smart phone for my time zone. Also, don’t tell me in your thick
Asian accent that your name is Charlie or Michael or Steve. I’m not buying that
for one minute. I won’t hold it against you if you tell me your name is Sumon,
Asif or Nazir…but I’m still not interested in what you’re selling.
(4) Next, if you plan to do work for me, know that I am not
going to make a final payment until the work is completed and a day or two has
gone by for me to inspect the work. If that doesn’t work for you, don’t bother
showing up. Of course, most of you don’t show up, anyway. (You know who you are.) You know what they say: Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, or three
times or four, shame on me. I may be a slow learner, but I’ve got it now. Capisci?
Now for the really important stuff:
(5) Don’t ever tell me to “get over” the fact that Donald Trump
will be president of the United States. I will not lie down for that and I will
not bend over for that. I DO NOT want to hear that from anybody. Ever. Again. Period.
I have already promised I would not say, “He’s not my
president,” because sadly, he will be. That’s the way our system works and I
can’t change it. I’ll be quick to add, however, that he is the most vile,
reprehensible, childish and dangerous subhuman who has ever occupied the
position, and I refuse to “normalize” him or his complete lack of moral fiber
just because 61 million lazy, confused, misled or stupid people voted him into
office.
He may be my president by law, but the people who voted for
him ARE NOT MY PEERS or my friends. They are people I’d rather not know.
(6) Finally, you should resolve to educate yourself throughout
the year. I don’t care how smart you are or how high your I,Q., there are
things you will need to know. The internet has made more information available
to more people than ever before, but you have to be involved enough to go
there, get it, read it, absorb it and sort it out from the fake news and slanted
pseudo-sites that twist everything into a partisan knot.
As one example, just yesterday I read a comment from a
seemingly well-educated woman who conflated the relationship among the Clinton
Foundation, government corruption and a business park in Haiti. I didn’t really
know what she was talking about so I looked it up. Bottom line: the words “corruption”
and “Haiti” might have belonged in the same sentence but the Clinton connection
was one of Donald Trump’s unchallenged campaign lies.
I may live long enough for one more presidential election or
maybe two. My resolution for everyone else is to please become an educated
voter during the next four years and exercise your right to vote when the time
comes around. Despite what this past election seemed to show, intelligence is
not a bad thing. Those people who perpetually vote against their own
self-interest could use a little bit of it or at least should apply the amount
they do have.
In a few days we are going to send a childish, shallow,
vacuous, narcissistic, misogynistic, xenophobic, racist con man tax evading
sexual predator who’s a pathological liar with dangerous, Fascist-inspired
ideas and a probable mental illness to the White House with 3 million fewer
votes than his opponent received in an election during which 40-some percent of
us didn’t even bother to vote.
That’s not how it’s supposed to work.
So, Mr. Phelps, those are your resolutions if you choose to
accept them. I’ll be watching to see how you do. Meanwhile, this essay will
self-destruct in 3…2…1… or maybe not.
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