Trena Eiden

About now, most of us are wondering why we told anyone our New Year’s resolutions — that we were gonna lose weight, quit smoking, be nicer, keep the laundry done, stop eating sugar, take the stairs or any number of things we haven’t done.

We probably started out gung-ho, then our gears shifted and we aren’t doing anything we said we would. In fact, we’re starting to wonder if we can still go to heaven if we haven’t made our bed since Aunt Marge was here for haying. Rest assured, when all else fails, lower your standards. That’s what I do. I figure, if you do a job well, you’ll be stuck with it.

I spoke with an elderly man last week who said something incredibly refreshing, “Folks should complain. Complaining is good. It keeps people from killing themselves and killing others because voicing frustration is stress relieving.” I was so enchanted, I scratched, “Quit complaining” off my list of resolutions and I think I danced a little jig.

It must be true, what this old gentleman said. I mean, look at my track record. In all categories, I’m the whining, complaining, killjoy queen, and prophet of doom, whose favorite word is “No” and yet, I have never killed anybody. So, you should trust me, I know things.

Upon hearing what the gentleman said, a friend scoffed, “When you fuss to people about your gloomy life, half of them don’t care about your petty, personal problems and the other half are glad you’ve got them.” This could be true. I know I’m only happy for people’s success if I’m frolicking through life myself and I know for a fact, there are others of this frame of mind also.

Take for instance earlier this month, when visiting one of my children who frequents a work-out center. Upon arrival, I texted a friend pictures of all the machines and said, “These people are serious exercisers. They sweat and everything. I’m on a recumbent bike doing 0-1 and eating a Tootsie Roll while reading a tabloid. I’m getting frowns, which could mean two things. Either exercise is not smile-worthy or they’re all jealous of the Cheetos I just pulled out of my bag.”

A guy who worked in the facility came close to me and I thought he was going to ask me to leave, seeing as how I was enjoying myself, but he was merely cleaning the equipment. At one point he looked over and, eyeing my treats, said a little too sarcastically, “Exercise is hard, huh?”

I gave a sweet, little smirk and earnestly, said, “You know, I’ve heard that, and actually my legs were getting slightly tired, but when I tried to catch a lower gear, I realized I was in the lower gear. Thankfully, I didn’t fall off the turnip truck yesterday. I experimented until I found that putting it on ‘cool down’ resulted in this baby almost pedaling itself. I was like ‘Holy Cow! What a win!’”

Winking, I said, “And here you are, you little health-freak fanatic, proclaiming that exercise is hard. Pshaw.” He tried to smile but it came out as something not quite that.

I recently read an article about some things from the past year that caused me to pause. One tidbit stated that 56 percent of shoppers buy something for themselves while buying gifts for others. I could understand this. Who better to buy for than the one you love the most?

How about the fact that Americans get rid of 68 pounds of clothing per person, each year? To be fair, I think that’s just about the weight of one of my Aunt Bernice’s tent dresses, so it’s all relative.

One of my favorite snippets was that 186 million pies were sold in grocery stores throughout the year. That sounds like a lot, but it’s only about a half-pie per person. Heck, I could scarf that down by Valentine’s. The sketchy part is, 7 percent of the pie buyers passed them off as homemade. What? Here’s where I start to wonder, who we can trust? How did the publication glean this information? Who’s dumb enough to tell all their dirty little secrets? Well, obviously, 7 percent of us.

Yesterday I read that female dragonflies fake death to avoid male advances. I tried this last night. Gar saw right through it. I am happy to report that on New Year’s Day, Gar said he’d spend the rest of his life with me. What courage.