THE RESOLUTION

It is that time of year again to beat ourselves up.
In just two columns!

Column 1: Good points and accomplishments.
Column 2:  Imperfections, inabilities, failings…

Column 2 always seems to be longer. A virtual balance sheet conceived with brutal honesty after a period of deep introspection.

In the next month you will be subjected to hundreds of commercials for weight loss programs and exercise machines. You will become an expert in the latest ways to torture your body into shape. Yes, standing room only at Weight Watchers meetings and long lines at the gym. This will last for about six weeks of intense activity at which point the gym crowds will start to thin out and seats will increase in abundance available at the aforementioned weekly meetings. Slowly, the organized insanity of this period will diminish as the dust settles and the diet industry counts their newly acquired billions. Some of that dust will settle on the tens of thousands of exercise machines, weight sets, giant rubber bands and other grotesque devices conceivably conceived by the likes of Vlad the Impaler or the Marquis de Sade.                                                                                                                          
 Husbands across the country swear a solemn oath that they would look like King Leonidas in The 300 by June.

If their wives are willing to give up that coveted 18 square feet in the basement.

Women all over the nation skeptical of this outcome (yet showing their encouragement), buy into this fantasy and relinquish their small piece of basement real estate.
Over the next six weeks this future Adonis will use the machine occasionally, but the rate will become more infrequent as the weeks pass and the exercise machine begins its transformation into an expensive coat rack.

Waking up to the fact that she will not soon be living with a Greek God, her decision is made and the device will soon be on the curb.
                                                                             
 Somewhere around Mid-February comes the time to borrow or rent a vehicle that can carry a large machine. Driving to a rich neighborhood – rich people always have the best garbage – you have your pick of these discarded devices.

Many of them brand new!
You might even find a new set of gym clothes hanging from them. Hurry up!!
The sanitation men like gym equipment too.

Of course, it is time to start eating sensibly, secure in the knowledge that your wallet is not the only thing getting thinner.

Jim - Jan. 2019