I stopped making New Year’s resolutions
about four years ago, after I finally realized that the only resolution I
actually could keep was the one where I vowed never to make any more
resolutions.
But this year, I decided to break that resolution and actually make a few new ones...out of sheer desperation.
Unfortunately, I just got around to
making them only yesterday, just a little bit late.
My first resolution is to cut back, way
back, on my consumption of Hershey’s Special Dark chocolate.
My problem began a few months ago when
I heard that dark chocolate actually had health benefits, especially for the heart. So, reasoning that eating dark chocolate would be good for me, I bought a small bar
of it.
Well, at first bite, dark chocolate
didn’t taste that great to me. It was kind of bitter compared to milk chocolate, and it
wasn’t as creamy. But within a week, I was hooked on the stuff. Maybe it was because
of its caffeine content, which is greater than in regular chocolate. All I know is I began craving dark chocolate as if it were a glass of fresh lemonade and I was lost in the Sahara Desert. Soon,
I was eating two bars a day, then three.
But my chocolate habit hit an all-time
high a couple weeks ago. I was in Ocean State Job Lot in Concord and saw these
HUGE, nearly half-pound Hershey Special Dark Chocolate bars for only $1.50
each. I couldn’t believe my eyes! There
had to be a catch, I thought. After all, I’d just spent 90 cents on a puny little chocolate bar – the kind I used to buy for a nickel when I was a kid.
I checked the expiration dates on the
giant bars. They were good until the end of the year.
“Great!” I thought. “I’ll buy a bunch of
them! At this price, I can’t go wrong,
and I’ll have a nice stash of them that will last me until 2019!”
So I grabbed an armload of the candy
bars and rushed over to the checkout.
“I’m stocking up for the year!” I told
the clerk.
Well, it pains and embarrasses me to
confess this, but the candy bars lasted only about a week. No kidding, I practically inhaled them. I acted like someone who'd just learned that a gigantic meteor was about to strike the planet and wipe out everyone...and I didn't want the chocolate to go to waste. I then began to sprout zits in weird places,
like just inside my right nostril and behind my knee. I also gained five pounds (I don’t
know if it was from some newly acquired body fat or from just the total weight of
all of the candy bars I ate). Still, I was craving dark chocolate even more than before.
I rushed back to the Concord Job Lot to stock up on more of the Hershey bars. When I was informed they were all sold
out, I drove straight to the Hooksett store.
“Really?” the clerk responded, looking surprised when I
asked him about the candy bars. “The Concord store has huge Hershey bars for only
$1.50? How come we never got any in stock over here?
Heck, I’d buy some for myself!”
I groaned.
“Hey, but we have some giant Reese’s
peanut-butter cups,” he said, trying to make me feel better. “They’re about as big in diameter as a DVD and weigh a ton.”
“Noooo!” I whined. “I need my dark
chocolate! It’s healthier for me!”
As I uttered the words, I could feel
another zit popping out somewhere between my eyebrows.
So that was when I decided to make my
first New Year’s resolution for 2018…
no more chocolate – no dark chocolate,
no milk chocolate, not even any white chocolate. As of today, I’m quitting, cold turkey. My skin and my stretchy
jeans that now have been stretched to within a hair of their life, will thank
me for it.
My second resolution is to stop buying
anti-aging creams and wrinkle removers. The time has come for me to realize
that the only way I’m ever going to take years off my life and make myself
look young again is if someone invents a time machine that actually works...and
I’m close enough to dive into it.
I have so many anti-aging
products stuffed into my bathroom cabinet right now, the wood on the doors actually looks
new again. My face, however, still is sporting more wrinkles than an unmade
bed. And my neck is so saggy, it’s a wonder I wasn’t shot during turkey-hunting
season. But I have decided to sincerely try to accept the fact that wrinkles and
sagging skin are just a natural part of aging (unless, that is, I win Powerball and can
afford cosmetic surgery).
And my final resolution is to become
braver about driving at night. It seems that the older I get, the less I want to drive after dark, which can be a problem during the winter months, seeing it
gets dark right about the time I decide to crawl out of bed.
My biggest fear is driving on the main
road near my house. It has more curves than Marilyn Monroe’s body and no
breakdown lane or anywhere to pull over if my car ever breaks down. And more times
than I can count, deer practically have hurled themselves into the road right
in front of my car at night, as if attempting to commit deer-icide.
As a result, the minute it gets dark out
while I’m driving, I grip the steering wheel so tightly, my hands go numb. I also slow down to about 25 mph. This usually results in the car behind me pulling
up so close (probably in an attempt to nudge me along) it looks as if the
driver is sitting in my back seat.
But I think I may have devised the
perfect way to cancel out my resolutions and solve all my problems in just
one shot. If Job Lot decides to reorder more of those giant chocolate bars, they
should sell them only at night. That way, I’ll have all the incentive I need to drive after dark. And, after I buy and eat a bunch of the chocolate bars, I’ll gain
enough weight to fill out all of my skin’s wrinkles and sagginess, so there will be no need for me to buy any more anti-aging products.
Simple, right?
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