New Year’s Eve 2020 is going as expected
New Year’s Eve 2020 is going as expected
When the last day of 2020 sums up the ridiculousness of the year
Writer’s note: This post was first published on Medium’s “Tickled” on December 31, 2020 and will now be permanently housed on Substack’s new “Tickled” column.
I woke up this morning and heard rustling around. Earlier this month, I put down glue traps after hearing an unfamiliar running sound on my laminate floors — not quite as loud as dogs I’ve boarded but noisy enough to know something was breathing in my condo besides me. Less than 24 hours later, I heard a mouse squealing loud as hell in my living room. I decided at that moment that I would spend the rest of the month sitting on my bed, eating mints from my purse to survive. (Fortunately, my father is always down to come over in the clutch — even though he lives 50 minutes away, and it was a Sunday at 7 a.m. Salute to all fathers, by the way, specifically those who discard glue traps before the sun comes out.)
Recommended Read: “He brought a bat to a gunfight ~ Two lessons I learned from fathers”
The scratching this time was a neighbor from the third floor taping a Christmas card to her mailbox, so the mail carrier would see it and mail it for her. But once you’ve heard the sound of a mouse squealing for 30 minutes straight and trying to get off a glue trap, everything sounds like that for the next few days — including tape dispensers. I slept with meditation music on for a week straight. The sound of silence was making me a nervous wreck.
After the tape dispenser panic, I decided, “Today will be better than yesterday*! I will only think positive thoughts and be constructive on New Year’s Eve.” I stood up, stretched and turned on my smartphone timer, all set to do Mr. Helio Faria dance choreography for one-of-five weekly workouts. I grabbed a pair of yoga pants to dance in, then got ready to take my pajamas off. Snap. The entire string on one side of my pajama bottoms came off in my hand. Before I could catch them, my pajama bottoms flopped to my ankles, Winnie the Pooh style.
Nope. Still gonna have positive thoughts today.