Folks, this next one is a two-pronged resolution, but you can handle it. You are tough. You have stopped wearing clothing at home and don't wear yoga clothes when you leave home. You push a stroller only when there is an actual baby in it and you don't address that baby with business jargon. You even replace the toilet paper roll yourself with little to no assistance! You have come this far and I am certain you are up to the related challenges of 'excuse me' and 'sorry.'
Excuse Me
"Excuse me" is a phrase to be used in anticipation of a potential collision. Because this concept seems to be so very difficult for many of the residents of my fair city to grasp, let me draw up a situation to help make my point.
You are in the Gap and you need to pass by a customer to get a closer look at something on the sale rack. You:
a) Stand and wait until the person moves of her own accord
b) Say 'excuse me' and after the other customer has kindly moved out of your way, tear into the sale rack
c) Walk right into that customer, mumbling 'excuse me' as you do so
The correct answer here is b. Let's analyze why. If you chose answer a, how are you enjoying your visit to NYC from the Midwest? Here in New York, we never wait for anything unnecessarily, and certainly not patiently. If you chose answer c, you are not saying 'excuse me' to avoid a collision, but are almost wielding it as a weapon. Don't get me wrong, I love a good weapon, but that is not the function of 'excuse me'; it is the function of your two middle fingers, however. Only in answer b do you properly use excuse me to alert the customer that she is where you need to be and ask her to please move.
Are you beginning to get it? Here is a more challenging question for you to try your hand at. You are in the Fairway, a local and always insanely crowded supermarket, and you need to pass by a customer to pick out some artisenal scones. You:
a) Stand and wait until the person moves of her own accord
b) Say 'excuse me' and after the other customer has kindly moved out of your way, tear into the artisnal baked goods
c) Walk right into that customer, mumbling 'excuse me' as you do so
Trick question! Even in a very crowded situation, you must still say excuse me before you move into a space currently occupied by another person. Sorry, that's that's just the way it goes. Which segues nicely to...
"Sorry"
Sometimes, despite all our best efforts to properly apply the phrase 'excuse me,' we make a mistake and bump into someone. I did it myselfonce. In such an instance, you are to say you are sorry and move on. In the event that somebody should do the same to you, assuming that they have caused you no actual bodily injury, you are obligated to accept the 'sorry' you receive, also assuming the energy with which it was said matches the situation.
If you spill a full cup of hot coffee down the back of a stranger because you pull up short at a light, while walking no less, you owe that poor woman (in the really cute pink top she is wearing for the first time ever) a full-on apology. She is now wearing an entire cup of hot coffee on her back. While that must be an inconvenience to you, what with your having to now return to Starbucks, she is in actual pain and you owe her a sincere apology.
If that same woman in the cute pink top should accidentally walk in front of you while you are pushing your baby in a stroller, causing no injury at all, and then apologize sincerely, you are obligated to accept this apology. You should not continue to shoot mean looks at her and say nasty things about her under your breath to your friend, because she will in fact turn around and ask you just what the hell you want her to do or say to make up for the fact that she briefly stepped in your path. She may even display the aforementioned weapons, even though her mother is with her.
Did you ever notice that everyone around you seems to be dressed for an activity in which they are not actually currently participating? Specifically, they are mostly dressed for workouts. And more specifically, the 'they' is women and the 'workouts' are yoga. This practice is wrong and it must stop and you must resolve to play your part.
"But yoga pants are so comfortable!" you whine. Well, you know what is even more comfortable than yoga pants? Pajamas! But do you see me wearing pajamas? Well, you don't really see me at all, but let me assure you that I am wearing a striped top, a funky cardigan, a belt and corduroys.
"But I may do yoga in six or seven hours!" you continue whining. But you are not in yoga right now. Here is one way you can be sure: Is there a woman at the front of the room saying 'namaste?' No? You are not in yoga class. Did you have to swipe a card and pass through a turnstile before entering a metal cylinder that is hurtling through the dark? You are on a subway car. And, to continue my analogy from the paragraph above, I will definitely be sleeping later (even if this seems to offend the dog I am currently dogsitting), and yet, I am wearing those cords and not my cozy pajamas (and let me assure you, I have the very coziest pjs, as they are another of "my things").
Dressing appropriately for the activity at hand is what separates us from the animals. As proof, I offer you Stella, our puppy. She does downward dog about 50 times a day, and not once has she changed into a pair of lululemons first.
You resolve to wear no more than one outfit per week. Total. (This resolution is quite possibly inspired by my completion of ten loads of laundry tonight. And that is not the only laundry I have done this week - I have done at least five more. That's fifteen loads, for those of you whose mind is numbed by the very thought of matching all those socks and sorting all those pjs.)
Out in the world you will fight off clothing stains like Wonder Women with her magic bracelets. WHAP!! You will prevent that chocolate frozen yogurt from drizzling its way down a just washed winter jacket in an admittedly poorly chosen pale pink. WHAP!! That white uniform cuff will lift itself up 3 inches, refusing to drag itself through a plate of ketchup as you reach for your drink. WHAP!! Your navy pleated skirt will magically repel afterschool art class paint, of both the glitter and non-glitter variety.
As you step over threshold into your home, you pledge to strip off your clothes immediately and don a paper robe, hanging your clean clothing in the closet by the door. You will wear that robe until you next dress in those same clean clothes in preparation to leave the apartment, at which point you will - pay attention now - ball up your paper robe and throw it not on the floor but in the garbage (the recycling bin if you are feeling especially ambitious).
Does this resolution seem too intense, too demanding? I do offer an alternative: do all your own laundry. I thought so. Don't forget the robe's opening goes in the in back.
Having spent my entire work life in the world of huge professional services companies since graduating from college, sometimes it's hard for me to fully understand how different my work environment is from every other possible work environment. For one thing, I am told that in the rest of the world, employees do not do endless numbers of evaluations and self-evaluations, at midyear and at year-end, two time periods that somewhat inexplicably seem to blend seamlessly into each other. I guess that makes sense, although I am not certain life is worth living without the high one gets from completing HR forms in a mad scramble, constantly checking the clock as it ticks toward a midnight deadline.
Likewise, in the exciting world of business, we have our own language, and sometimes, like an actual bilingual person (which I am not), I may forget where I am and to whom I am speaking and launch right into that language. Your next resolution is to join me in fighting hard to keep your personal conversations and business jargon from colliding. This pledge includes avoiding such offenses as:
Telling your significant other that he is stuck in analysis paralysis. If you think he was stuck before, try introducing a piece of lingo like that one, and watch him spend 45 minutes dissecting it (and you, for using it). While he may have just proven your point, was it really worth it?
Requesting that your daughter's speech therapist provide you with milestones and deliverables. First of all, it turns out that in the real world people don't typically address these items. What they do is look at you like you are entirely nuts and you can actually see them mentally work their way through a list of potential reasons they can use to excuse themselves from assisting the daughter of the crazy woman. Luckily, in the end they come to feel sorry for the daughter of the crazy woman and possibly even redouble their efforts to assist.
Suggesting that your daughter has not done her due diligence in preparing her primary source research project - also known as a fourth grade book report. If you thought she was angry at you for making her read the book, even when she realized it was not as much fun as any of the Dear Dumb Diary series and had no pictures at all, multiply that a trillion-fold to get her reaction to this lingo-laden accusation. Try phrasing it something like "Honey, it's a good idea to read your assignment before getting three paragraphs in. No, not erasing it because it doing so will make the page look 'messy,' is not an option. Given what your room likes like 99% of the time, it is hard to believe you think 'messy' is anything less than a compliment anyway." Or some variation on that.
I should write more, but I just realized that spell check does not recognize 'deliverables' as a word and I must address that error immediately. I dare not even look for 'incentivization,' not to mention the perrenial favorite, 'updation.'
I haven't used a stroller lately, but as I recall, the term 'stroller' is actually short for 'baby stroller.' You may think that is a point not worth making, and, believe me, I wish you were right. But you are wrong. And for that reason, we have resolution #3 - this year you resolve to push babies, and only babies, in strollers.
Do you have a lot of paperwork you need to carry around from place to place? It happens to the best of us. What does not happen to the best of us is loading those papers into assorted supermarket plastic bags, plastic bags now disintegrating with age, and then stacking those bags into a stroller, which you then push through the city streets, pretending that you do not, in fact, look homeless. Tell yourself that that well-dressed woman who just handed you a dollar mistook you for a friend of hers she borrowed that same amount from yesterday, but we both know she just checked off the "give charity" entry on her to-do list.
Hmmmm, what solution is there to this situation? May I recommend a roller bag, a briefcase, or my personal favorite, a tote. Totes are just perfect for toting stuff around - it's even right there in the name. I don't care if you use a Marc Jacobs tote or a freebie one that, hypothetically says something about Dr. Phil needing to hold you (and, coincidentally comes from the supermarket, in case you are wed to the notion of procuring your paper transport needs there), a tote is the answer to your paper problem.
Similarly, while a stroller is intended for taking strolls with your baby or even your preschooler, it is not intended for making your way around the city with your 40-pound first grader. I know, your first grader would prefer to be in a stroller, but so what? (Are we now taking direction from first graders? Because I dread the dinners of fluff, olives and goldfish crackers this approach is sure to result in.) Also, clearly this is my opporutnity to mention that many, many men I passed while pushing my stroller also claimed the stroller was their first choice when it came to transportation; they all thought it was simply hilarious to shout remarks like "Hey, would you push me around in a stroller?" or "That's the life." Not surprisingly, I did not indulge them any more than I would indulge a first grader. And, not surprisingly, somehow not a single woman ever voiced that desire.
Lastly, I cannot believe I have to say this, but it seems that I do. You may not push your pet in a stroller. A baby stroller is not for pets. In fact, a pet stroller is not for pets. A pet stroller is simply a baby stroller manufactured for and purchased by a pet crazy. You may not put a dog in it. You may not put two dogs in it. You may not put two dogs in it and then somehow get that stroller up onto the city bus and then give me an unprompted lecture about how you take your stroller of shih tzus to the movies with you and feed them popcorn. (I got exactly what I deserved, of course, when I responded that popcorn is a choking hazard for dogs. I learned that it is, in fact, perfectly safe if you pre-chew the popcorn for your dog.)
Piece of cake, then. No baby = no stroller. It's as easy as that! An exception is made, of course, for young children pushing dolls in strollers. So cute! No exception is made, of course, for anyone else pushing dolls in strollers. So creepy!
"I resolve not to walk into other people when I can avoid it. This means that when they are in my way, even if I am in a tremendous hurry to get on that subway car or I really want a grande caramel light frappuccino (with extra caramel and a dome lid), I will still not walk into others, as they, like me, are humans, and I must take it on their word that they, like me, are sentient.
'I' am defined in this resolution as including my physical being as well as anything I am wearing, carrying or pushing. This means that I will not push my shopping cart into your rear end as you open an egg carton to check for cracked eggs, as you are, in fact, quite visible and collision is entirely preventable. Also, I will not walk past you and hit you with my enormous backpack; that is to say, I will not act entirely oblivious to the fact that I am carrying around at least 6 weeks/35 pounds of clothing on my back and that turning suddenly and body-slamming you with same backpack could injure, or at least anger, you."
Walking is challenging. Stay tuned for your resolution not to walk through a door ahead of the person for whom it has been opened!
This year, being the efficient and generous soul that I am, I will celebrate the Winter-Holiday-of-Your-Choice and New Years both at once by giving you the gift of resolution. Each day (or those days I remember to), up until New Years, I will offer you a new resolution.
Resolution #1 - Rock the Roll
Sometimes, despite your best efforts to avoid it, you are the person who uses the last square of toilet paper. It happens to the best of us. Now I know that usually you would undertake the following steps:
- Use tissues. When tissues are gone -
- Use wipes, despite how old any wipes found in this baby-free household must be. When wipes are all gone -
- Avoid toilet paperless bathroom at all costs, until the roll has been replaced. If this means using only the bathroom at school or at the Starbucks two blocks away, so be it
This year will be different. This year you pledge to do the following when you find yourself carefully peeling off that very last square:
- Select a roll from one of the 30 or so rolls under the sink (stacked in a not-at-all-OCD FIFO order)
- Remove the empty toilet paper tube from the dispenser
- Hand tube to the dog (she is right at hand to simplify this task for you)
- Place the new roll in the dispenser
Stand back and admire your work. If you feel you have come up short, rest assured that within a day or so you will be given another opportunity to practice this new skill, unless you have already perfected your never-use-the-last-square avoidance maneuvers.
