Morning Lines

You can pretty much gauge the quality of your life by the first words you utter when you wake up in the morning. No, this is by no means a scientific rule of thumb to go by. But if you ever catch yourself uttering words or sentences like these first thing in the morning, well, maybe your life isn't on some kind of down slope but there might be big trouble ahead.

What's the cure? Beats me. If I knew that I wouldn't be online writing a pathetic post like this one. I'd be knee-deep in pizza and beer and halfway through the Dirty Harry series for the umpteenth time. OK, here we go. Here are a dozen morning lines to watch out for.

Here are six morning lines to watch out for when you're just waking up and your eyes are still closed. If you utter this kind of stuff before your eyes are even open, the rest of your day may very well be downhill.

"Sorry."

"No problem."

"Yeah, be right there."

"It wasn't my fault."

"And don't you forget it."

"You bastards!"

Here are another six warning lines to watch out for. These often blurt out when you're just waking up and your eyes are wide open. And you have no interest in getting up:


"Damn!"

"And there he goes again!"

"...and that's what I have to worry about."

"It figures."

"Shit."

"I just know I left the garage door open last night."


But, wait, no need to cash in the chips already. So what if you had a nightmare and you're still talking it out when morning rolls around? So what if you wake up and don't want to get out of bed or do a damn thing all day long? Big deal. It happens to the best of us. In fact, I've even come up with a short list of morning lines that are temporary antidotes for the disease that causes morning-line sickness. There's probably no cure for misery except health and happiness but even they've been known to be upstaged periodically by paranoia and restlessness. So, here are six lines that might not cure what ails you but they're almost guaranteed to put the kibosh on any negative morning utterances before they have the chance to cross your lips:


"Two eggs over easy and keep the coffee coming."

"My farts don't stink so that must be somebody else's."

"You're welcome, babe. My pleasure."

"Jeeves! Warm up the Bentley!"

"Feels like Saturday to me."

"Author! Author!"


See what I mean? You're damn right. I feel better already.

Easy New Years Resolutions

I often wondered why Earthlings liked to make New Years resolutions when they rarely stuck to them. It reminds me of when I was a boy and a practicing Roman Catholic and we were pressed to give up something for Lent, like candy or soda pop or swearing. Nobody could give up those things, so why did we pretend that we could?

American grownups were the only role models I had for making New Years resolutions and they didn't help me much as a kid. Men would often pretend to give up drinking as a New Years resolution, which meant not drinking whiskey and beer, and sometimes they'd say they were going to quit smoking. Of course, I never knew any grown up man who made good on promises like these. They were just as unrealistic as a teenager giving up potato chips for Lent. Get real.

Now that I'm a grown up man myself and well past my prime, I've gotten hip to the secret behind New Years resolutions. Not being Catholic anymore, I won't have to worry about Lent later this winter. But, if I did, the same secret would work for that as well. And here it is: simply vow to do something you'd naturally and easily do anyway or, if it involves not doing, then simply vow to not do something you would not do anyway.

I made a list of 10 Easy New Years Resolutions that will definitely work for me and maybe some of them will work for you as well.

1. Start balancing your checkbook
2. Start holding the door open for others, especially women and children.
3. Start coming to a complete stop at Stop signs.
4. Start treating others the way you'd like them to treat you.
5. Start wrapping your used gum in its own foil instead of spitting it out in the parking lot.
6. Stop saying "vis á vis".
7. Stop using the "f" word in every single sentence.
8. Stop tailgating the poor bastard in front of you because he obeys the speed limit and you don't.
9. Stop getting drunk and running naked through the back yard.
10. Stop getting drunk and running naked through the front yard.

Why make the new year hard on yourself if you don't have to?