|
A new year begins Paul Ryan One eye slowly opens and focuses. Then the other. You raise your hand to rub the sleep away, and that's your first mistake. The moment you move, it's like you've awoken a virus in your skull. You feel groggy and ill, and your head seems to have shrunken a size too small for what's inside. You try to sit up, and that's your second mistake. The virus drops like a rock into your stomach, spreading throughout your body. You feel weak, the room spins, and you hold your head in your hands to try and make it all stop. If only you had waited until 4 pm to wake up. Watching someone recover from a hangover behind closed doors is amusing, but this process is even funnier on New Year's day, when you get to see people suffering through it in public. Suddenly, for just one morning, the world has lost its glamour, its sparkle, its sex appeal. No one has showered, shaved, or applied makeup. No one is "putting on a happy face". The aspirin hasn't kicked in yet, and it never will. It's just straight endurance until late afternoon, when heads will become clearer and smiles will return to people's faces. But it's still morning, and the afternoon is miles away. This is how the world might look without the influence of popular culture, without advertisements and public service messages telling us we need to be pretty and happy, even if we're not. New Year's hangovers cause everyone to portray on the outside what they really think on the inside most days: "Man, does this suck." There is nothing funnier than hitting the local family restaurant around 11 am on New Year's day. The last Confederacy meeting during the end of the Civil War probably looked similar. Defeated, broken human beings trying to suffer through a meal. To get the most out of the scene, you have to look at the faces of the morning-after victims as they attempt to eat. They stare blankly at their plate of scrambled eggs, childishly pushing them around with a fork before lifting a tiny portion into their mouth and grimacing. It's absolutely hilarious. It's funnier than Charlie Chaplin, Andy Kaufman, or Jim Carrey. It's funnier than a baby saying a curse word. It's funnier than a goat at the petting zoo trying to eat a child's hair. In comedy, it's the delivery that counts. "I'll have dry toast, please." "I'd also like dry toast." "Just a big glass of water. Nothing else. I just want water." Restaurant workers must love New Year's day. They have the simplest orders to fill, and it's the one day customers are suffering worse than them. And hey, if they get the same customers who annoyed them the night before while drunk, they can get sweet, sweet payback. "HELLO SIR, WHAT CAN I GET FOR YOU TODAY?!?" "Please . . . not so loud . . . uggh." "OH, I'M SORRY SIR! DOES MY LOUD VOICE HURT YOU? AM I CAUSING YOU DISCOMFORT AND MENTAL ANGUISH?"
I'm not sure that getting revenge is a good and ethical way to start off a new year, but then again, neither is waking up and vomiting ten beers into the toilet. Either way, the morning after will always be more amusing than the night before, especially if you were sober.
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
