By Anna Collins

Have you been thinking about them? You know you’re going to get asked, and it’s going to be soon – the dreaded – What are your New Year’s resolutions?

Yes, that again. Now you have to stop and think what it is about yourself that you must assuredly improve or eliminate, like unwanted pounds, excessive spending or hitting the sauce like a Kennedy. Just when everything was going good and you thought you could skate right into the new year without any self reflection, some well meaning (or not) personage will inevitably challenge you to choose which perfectly satisfying and fun ‘evil’ you must confront and vaporize.

Resolutions? This year, I have my answers early. This year I’m not making any resolutions. Instead, I’m making revolutions. That’s right – never mind me changing my ways, this is stuff I want changed, situations I would improve, people I would eliminate and dietary habits I should follow. I suggest you consider this new method of ringing in the New Year; it’s so much more fun and it takes the pressure off, when on January 1, you’ve already blown it by eating a Kit-Kat bar and washing it down with a glass of Johnny Walker Red.

Wouldn’t it be great if you could change all those annoying, irritating, nerve-racking people or situations that have plagued you throughout the year and turn them into affable, lovely, delightful experiences – without Xanax?  I see you nodding already.

Let’s pretend we have a magic wand and each time we’re faced with the annoying person, situation, etc. we get to wave the wand and make everything to our liking – revolutionize the situation. Remember: visualization and imagination are powerful forces and the subconscious can’t tell the difference between a real situation and an imagined one. Which admittedly does garner odd looks when I’m in a crowded place and I start talking to my handsome, loving, considerate boyfriend who isn’t really there. Although this practice does move me to the head of the line quicker at the bank.

I’m rubbing my palms together as I get ready to list:

My Un-numbered List of New Year’s Revolutions to Make Life More Fun and Livable by Waving the Magic Wand: 

I’ll Drive As Slow As I Damn Well Please (meaning the speed limit!) on I-95 or the Turnpike
Apparently, on either one of these major highways the speed limit is merely a suggestion.  I don’t care to drive 100 miles an hour just so I can get one car length ahead and end up the same as everybody else anyway by the time I reach the toll booth. And of course, those Indianapolis 500 drivers have to first crawl up your butt before they pass you! What is that? Next time that happens I wave my magic wand and have the whole rear end of my vehicle open up into a rear end.  That’s right, a big foam butt that blows out of the back of my car and there, emblazoned across the cheeks, is written: The only thing this butt needs is an ass**le to crawl up in it– and looks like you’re it!  All the new ’07 cars should have it. And it’s not such a far-fetched idea. Have you seen the vehicles with the fake scrotum hanging from the back bumper? And the bumper sticker: If you can read my scrotum - you’re too close.  I rest my case.

Cashiers Who Put the Change On Top of the Bills
What, am I practicing to be one of the juggling Walendas? Put the darn change in my palm first so perhaps I can maneuver it into my wallet without having to use the manual dexterity of Houdini. Stop putting the coins on the bills! They slide around and fall off – they’re not supposed to be paperweights. Next time I have to struggle with this I will wave my magic wand and force the cashier to do the math for the change in her head. And with the keen mathematical skills we so often witness in society these days, it’ll be in my favor: “Here you go ma’am, $20, $40, $50 – your dental floss and change for a ten.”

To Stop Dating Men Who Aren’t Good For Me
This includes men who are: married, mean, medicated, moronic, neurotic, stupid, sneaky, snarky, snotty, stoned, sophomoric, alcoholics, workaholics, sexaholics, jerkaholics, perverts, sociopaths, liars, leeches, lechers, stalkers, talkers, rockers, men who only like me for my knockers, smokers, jokers, every day tokers and anyone who starts a sentence with, “The voices in my head said –“. I will wave my magic wand and –hey! What’s wrong with this thing? It’s not working! (wave, wave, wave). Figures.

To Admit to the World – I HATE Tofu!
There. I’ve said it. Ugh – what is that stuff? I mean I know what it is – but what is it? Tofu - even the name sounds suspect – like a sound you’d make when you sneeze or release an unexpected flatus. It should be called ‘Stuff that tastes like nothing at all - Yet is so totally gross’. It’s like eating those rectangular rubber erasers you got in seventh grade art class, only less tasty. And it comes packed in murky water – can that possibly be more unappealing? Who comes up with this stuff? You have to doctor the bejesus out of it just to make it edible; nine pounds of soy sauce, enough spices to preserve the population of Phoenix, maybe fry it in a vat of oil to hopefully crust out the outside so it has some hope of texture. Or, it’s completely surrounded and hidden by about 50 different vegetables in some stir-fry dish like it’s in the tofu witness protection program. Wave the wand and voila!  A big, bold, juicy Porterhouse steak, medium rare, thank you. With a side order of pork chops.

To Eliminate the Word ‘Pre-owned’ and say what it really is – Used
This clever euphemism is a popular ruse in the secondary automotive market. It isn’t a ‘used car, it’s a ‘pre-owned’ car. This word seems to be exceptionally bandied about when referring to the higher end vehicles; BMW, Mercedes and Jaguar. And if the narrator on the TV commercials has an English accent, and pronounces Jaguar, ‘Jag-you-are’ or ‘Jag-wire’ giving it feigned upper crust credibility – the price jacks up accordingly. Let’s face it, if you can’t afford a new one of these babies, don’t buy one. You’re not impressing anyone driving around in a 1999 Jag-wire while living in a one-bedroom apart-a-ment near the tracks.

After the wave of the wand, you’ll get the honest commercial: “Welcome to Shady’s Used Cars! All our vehicles are used harder than a ho’ on Saturday night.  None of the people who drove these cars took care of them, especially the Jag, Beamer and Benz owners – they have money for new cars every five minutes. They just toss their rides our way right before they crack the engine block from lack of oil. Sure, these babies look good on the outside, but just wait until you own them for a week or two – it’ll be all over but the cryin’. And have you looked into what it costs to get a Jag-you-are tuned up? You’ll be sayin’: ‘No way! Are you jagging me off?’ ”

The Phone Message: “Listen Carefully As Our Menu Options Have Changed.”
This is so mind-numbingly stupid, I can’t believe it even exists. What do these companies, banks, businesses and other inane establishments that use this message on their phone think? That we all memorized the last dumb menu they had and will be totally thrown off and spaz out if they don’t warn us ahead of time? Wave the Wand, bypass all that nonsense and get right to the human receptionist who’s sitting behind the desk filing her nails and yawning.

But wait! There’s more:

Using the Magic Wand to Eliminate Annoying Things in the Arts, like:

• Paris Hilton.  Enough is enough is enough. A wave of the wand and goodbye forever. And take that skank queen Nicole with you.
• Any thing to do with Tom Cruise and his latest ‘love’ interest.
• Courtney Love’s drug rehab and her alleged talent to do anything but get higher than the U.S. deficit.
• Rappers who write children’s books:  “Snow White and the Seven Little Mother________”  (You fill in the blank.)
• Celebrity lesbians and their causes: We don’t care!
• Stupid, plot-less, disguised-as-art David Lynch movies.
• Reality shows. Give me fantasy---I want something made up, imaginative, and entertaining. If I want gross, scary reality, I’ll go to my family reunion.
• The pompous host of “Inside the Actor’s Studio”.
• Musicians or actors with weird spellings to normal sounding names who get pissed if you don’t spell them right like: Dianne spelled Dyhanne or Jennifer spelled Gennepher or Michael spelled Meikhail. Totally ahsynyne. Get a lyphe.
• Actors who become political activists and use the Academy Awards show as their platform.
• Any play with the word ‘vagina’ in the title.
• Any paintings featuring monkeys dressed as royalty.
• Any painting with just a few stripes of color across a white canvas that sells for over $500,000 and is referred to as ‘genius.’
• Commercials on TV that are 17 thousand times the volume of the show you’re watching.

I could go on, but my editor gives me a word limit for my diatribe of diverse detours to these devilish dysfunctions that disturb my day.

So faithful readers, may you have a happy and healthy New Year and don’t worry about changing yourself – you’re perfect just the way you are. Really. It’s all those other crazies that have to change.