Who. The heck. Am I kidding. We’re starting the hopefully illustrious New Year of 2024 shortly. Well. At least I am. If it isn’t just like me, I believe this year will be different. I’m filled with hope and resolutions. You know. Resolutions? That’s like what the commandante in Zorro writes on parchment and the wine-loving Sgt. Garcia has to waddle to the town square and conspicuously post it then Zorro shoots a flaming arrow into the resolution, laughs robustly in a I Fear Not Death swashbuckling kind of way then slices a giant, “Z,” in poor Sgt. Garcia’s uniform.
That always bothered me. Every week, Zorro slashes his big initial in the corpulent Sgt. Garcia’s blouse. Having not seen any conspicuous stitching, I’m guessing Sgt. Garcia (his first name was Demetrio Lopez — bet you didn’t know that) just went out and bought another new XXXXL uniform top.
Anyway.
New Year’s Resolutions. Looking back, I still can’t two-hand dunk. I think the clock may be ticking on that one. I still consume more soda pop than President Trump. For Januarys without number, I promised myself that I’d take a pack horse and ride solo from here to Canada. Still can’t play the guitar — BUT — earlier in the year, I bought one and started to practice. The side with the strings on it goes in front, right? I churn out more books than Mao, yet, I’m still trying to break single digits in national sales. On the bright side, last few years? I haven’t married anyone and my body is pristine clean of lima beans and cauliflower.
As I flirt with impending middle age, come 2024, I’ll test my resolve by not making little “oof” noises when I get out of a car, cushy sofa or dismount from a horse unreasonably tall or otherwise. What I WON’T do is stop complaining about how much coffee costs. It deeply irritates my daughter, especially when we’re at Starbucks when I grab the barista by the lapels and share: “When I was a young man, coffee was so cheap, it was free. When I went down to surf in Mexico, the waitresses PAID me to drink it.”
I could just get out of my chair right now and dance. There is NOTHING more pleasing than irritating your children with back-in-the-day tales and showing them where the dirt used to be. Ditto with meeting their insufferable college friends for the first time and challenging: “Hey. Protest Boy. Bet you can’t say, ‘Unique, New York, fast, 10 times in a row. College didn’t teach you that, did they?”
Sigh. I’d miss that.
Perhaps I’ll entertain not giving people melvins for 2024. A melvin (lower case) for those of you who never attended junior high, middle school or a Rotary meeting, is when someone sneaks up behind you, reaches into your britches, grabs the back — and the operative word here is “back” because if you grab the front of the underwear, it’s considered a date — and yanks up your underwear 12 yards into the ionosphere. Takes weeks, a skilled and disinterested proctologist and fine horse to rescue the missing men’s lingerie from his nether regions. Like attending High Mass, giving melvins is something I infrequently, if ever, do so let’s just start with the obtainable goals, first.
Another resolution that would help me become A Better Human Being is to stop rolling my eyes when people say something stupid. Which is All The Time. This is more for my own well-being and not their benefit. My eye-rolling has gotten so bad that I’ve taken to beginning it from a running start. The movement is so violent, it hurts my neck. Sometimes, small children, in baby strollers, are knocked over. It’s not an attractive attribute on my part.
Another thing friends find annoying about me is that I have this uncontrollable behavior of saying, “Hi, Sis! How’s mom?” whenever I bump into a nun. Hmm. “Whenever I bump into a nun.” Sounds like a lyric to a Mary Poppins song, doesn’t it? “La-la-la-lah, la-luh-la-la whenever I bump into a nun…”
I briefly considered changing one of my favorite life sayings: “Shoot first and ask questions, later.” Technically, if you hide the body well enough, you don’t have to ask questions, ever.
Actually, one resolution I’ve kept for nearly four decades is to avoid going to a city council meeting. Got a non-attendance streak going back to 1987, although, while it may be cheating, I’ve a doctor’s note pointing out that I get HEBS (Hysterical Eye Bleeding Syndrome) every time I hear some puffed-up and useless bureaucrat mumble, “…mitigate.” That word. It’s like some sort of secret cult thing with these people.
I have what I believe to be deep-set, beautiful green, haunting, bedroom eyes. Because of that, some people accuse me of being evil. Bonus? It’s also hard for me to get eye exams. Just had one. Not making this up: The optometrist-ette had to use Scotch Tape to hold my eyelids open wide so the galopida-galopida eyeball machine could properly measure my peepers. It got me to thinking, like, back to my many years in sixth grade. Perhaps I could use the Scotch Tape to lift the sagging chin and extra throat material I’ve accumulated up a few feet. I know. I know. At my age, that’s a lot of Scotch Tape. Downside? The unattended consequence is that my ears are now touching each other on top of my head and it’s nearly impossible to wear sunglasses.
You know all those annoying, From-Another-Planet oddball liberal commentaries that appear after every story in all the nation’s conservative media outlets? Fox News? Breitbart? The Blaze? Jan. 6 Wrongly Imprisoned Inmate Illustrated Nude Monthly? That’s actually me, disguising my voice and using local SCV people’s names.
Perhaps a proper, kind and Christian New Year’s Resolution would be for me to stop doing that.
Nahhhhhh …
Santa Clarita’s John Boston’s is Earth’s most prolific satirist. He just published his hilarious “The Unauthorized Autobiography of Joe Biden.” Visit johnbostonbooks.com and load up on some.
The post John Boston | Giving up Lima Beans & Melvins for New Year’s… appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
John Boston | Giving up Lima Beans & Melvins for New Year’s…
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29.12.2023
Who. The heck. Am I kidding. We’re starting the hopefully illustrious New Year of 2024 shortly. Well. At least I am. If it isn’t just like me, I believe this year will be different. I’m filled with hope and resolutions. You know. Resolutions? That’s like what the commandante in Zorro writes on parchment and the wine-loving Sgt. Garcia has to waddle to the town square and conspicuously post it then Zorro shoots a flaming arrow into the resolution, laughs robustly in a I Fear Not Death swashbuckling kind of way then slices a giant, “Z,” in poor Sgt. Garcia’s uniform.
That always bothered me. Every week, Zorro slashes his big initial in the corpulent Sgt. Garcia’s blouse. Having not seen any conspicuous stitching, I’m guessing Sgt. Garcia (his first name was Demetrio Lopez — bet you didn’t know that) just went out and bought another new XXXXL uniform top.
Anyway.
New Year’s Resolutions. Looking back, I still can’t two-hand dunk. I think the clock may be ticking on that one. I still consume more soda pop than President Trump. For Januarys without number, I promised myself that I’d take a pack horse and ride solo from here to Canada. Still can’t play the guitar — BUT — earlier in the year, I bought one and started to practice. The side with the strings on it goes in front, right? I churn out more books than Mao, yet, I’m still trying to break single digits in national sales. On the bright side, last few years? I haven’t married anyone and my body is pristine clean of lima beans and........
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