
By Tiber
Since the whole family stayed home last New Year’s Eve, I didn’t realize that, this year, everybody had plans. Except for me.
And just as Santa sped away wishing “all a good night,” suddenly my brother Duncan and his wife were speeding away, yelling back, “You don’t mind taking care of the triplets, do you?” In their case, they were speeding away because they knew the answer would be, “I’m a normal human being, so yes! Yes, I do!” But it was too late.
I learned long ago, when babysitting the kids, never to ask them, “So, what do you want to do?”
What they want to do is clock your MPH when they push you off the roof in a greased sled.
What they want to do is calculate how large a living creature they can slip into your underwear before you start to scream and dance.
They also want to know if they can make it to Carmel or Cleveland or Cairo before you can escape from the cocoon they’ve sewn you into (made from Grandma Noni’s quilt) while you were napping.
So, instead, I said why don’t we play something passive, like Monopoly? This elicited their Damien/little girls from “The Shining” stare we all know which made me want to take the “Go Directly to Jail” card out of the Monopoly set and use it.
Knowing that tryptophan can make people sleepy, I begged Cook to make three turkeys before she left but she just laughed all the way to her car.
So, finally, I got the kids to admit that they’d like some music and I proceeded to sing songs from the “One Hit Wonders.” They didn’t realize there are hundreds of these and at last, their sweet, beady eyes began to close.
Unfortunately, they woke up just in time to see the New Year’s Eve Countdown in Times Square. Dammit! I know now they’re going to figure out some way to construct a giant ball as a school project. And then, they’re going to drop me.
Until then, however, whether you’ve had feast or famine, fortune or failure, fine wine or Funyuns, we wish for you an even happier New Year – where you make the world a better place for everyone that you meet.