Wringing in the new year

As we look back on the disastrous year behind … how did that happen again? Didn’t I promise last New Year’s that I wouldn’t do all that stuff? Anyway, we plan to take corrective action.

This year I will be a free spirit, like the Del Fuego biker gang in the movie “Wild Hogs.� They ride their Harleys, free as the wind, and hang out in their biker bar when they are not riding, belting down those Budweisers and getting more tattoos. Wait a minute. They don’t work. So where does the money for gas, leather jackets and chain wallets come from? You don’t want to know. Scratch that idea.

OK, so this year I will get into shape. I will join a gym, maybe. Or I could just get out there and jog every morning. I used to do that, but now that I think about it, I seem to remember that it took me longer to wrap and unwrap the various injuries from jogging than I actually spent jogging.

Well, how about a nice treadmill or Nordic Track? You just walk on those, right? And you walk and you walk while the scenery remains the same: that wall in the living room. Sure, you could watch TV. Somehow it doesn’t help. It feels like you are not getting anywhere because … you are not getting anywhere. Here, let me just hang my wet coat on this.

Maybe I will take a class and improve my mind. There is one problem with this. I am now older than all of the teachers and not so much in awe of their “academic credentials,� especially when the first course requirement is to go out and spend $50 on a textbook that they wrote. Isn’t that double dipping? Anyway, I can’t sit still for that long anymore without nodding off, and I snore.

There are a lot of swell places to which I would like to travel. I could plan that. Of course, I will need to wear a Hazmat suit or, at the very least, a face mask and those stretchy rubber gloves. You see, we are so worried about pandemics that even the grocery store seems dangerous these days, with signs posted telling you to sanitize your hands before and after touching their carts.

On a recent trip to New York City, I found myself trying to surreptitiously breathe into my coat collar to keep from sharing the air with the bazillion other people around me. I did learn how to open doors with my elbows, though.

So where does this leave me? Well, I could just stay here and count all the money I didn’t spend. Damn! I touched the money. Millions of other people have touched this money. Who knows where it has been? Quick! The Lysol spray!

Bill Abrams resides (and worries about what he will be doing in 2011) in Pine Plains.