I figured it would be a good time to talk about my New Year's resolution because everyone else has already.
This past New Year's Eve, you probably sat around watching Dick Clark on ABC as the ball dropped. You played Euchre with your friends, and talked about how you were going to give up smoking. You may have talked about going on a crash diet. How many of you have already broken your New Year's resolutions? There is a good chance that many of you have. I think this is because of poor planning. You need to pick something specific like I have so that you can keep your resolution.
It all started because I decided to visit a friend this year. I have been living in Los Angeles for awhile, and I needed a break from this place (but wasn't ready to go back to Muncie). I had not been to visit this friend since he moved to Utah for numerous reasons. The major reason is that he lives in Utah, home of the Mo-Mos. It's not that I don't like the Mormons, it's that they don't usually like me. I use foul language and foul language is outlawed in Utah. I am an outlaw to the Mormons.
Once in Salt Lake City, my friend gave me a tour of this amazing city. He also warned me to watch my language, as well as to refrain from spitting. It seems I could get into trouble for doing so. So we went out and visited the Temple where I started to get an eerie feeling.
Just then it hit me: I saw this on the cover of "Saturday Evening Post," just as Norman Rockwell had pictured it. Children were building snowmen, people were singing and caroling, horses were pulling wagons of young couples in love and everyone was genuinely festive. This theme was noticeable throughout my week, wherever we went.
My last night in town was New Year's Eve. We took a free limousine down to a local bar and started to consume mass quantities of alcohol. It's the only way to celebrate New Year's (or so I thought). We would leave a bar when we got tired of it (or if the service went bad), and ended up bar-hopping to about three different bars that night. Around 12:30, they called "last call." Bars close early there. So we drank up and went to the parking lot to wait for our limo. Outside, we ran into one drunken patron who had earlier befriended us. He threw a punch; I dodged it and his friends tackled him.
Shortly after, I decided I'd help them into the free limo so they could leave before me. As I was doing this, my friend disappeared. He reappeared 30 minutes later, running out of a bar (that had closed earlier) with two bartenders chasing him. He escaped; then came the questions and the resulting story.
My friend went into their bar as they were closing to use the restroom. They locked him in, not searching the restroom before doing so. He thought the bar had closed too early, so he proceeded to set up a round of drinks for those of us standing in the parking lot.
The bartenders forgot a gift at the bar, and returned for it to find my friend inside setting up drinks. They battled, he ran, the police showed up, I almost was arrested as an accessory and the two guys and the police left to hunt down my friend. They found him, jumped him and a battle ensued; the police broke it up, interrogated everyone and sided with my friend. After all, none of this would have happened had it not been for the bar.So, how did my New Year's resolution evolve out of all this? My resolution was to never drink with my friend in a bar in Utah again. This is a resolution I have been able to keep so far and I see myself keeping it for some time.a
Write to A.M. at rantinrexx@hotmail.com
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