Marching to the beat of different resolutions

Research has shown that 80% of people give up on their New Year’s resolutions by January 18. Yep, all that determination to make changes evaporates in about two weeks. And the guilt lasts the rest of the year, just like that gym membership you signed up for when you felt frisky about getting in shape back in December.

I’ve outsmarted the game by not starting my resolutions until March. That’s right. Why rerack your life in the gray, cold, wet early days of January while you’re still swollen from the turkey and cookies you absorbed over the past two months? That’s a recipe (no pun intended) for failure, my friend. No, I wait until we’re on the cusp of spring, a new beginning, before starting my quest for a better life. Sure, it’s wetter here than Cambodia in the monsoon season, but I waited until I got a feel for the new year, kind of like warming up in the bullpen before I jumped right into the self-improvement game. A medium once told me I’m a seeker. Well, this will be a year in which I seek the answers to questions that I know will benefit my community. I am, after all, a public servant.

Jerry-rigged: Who was Jerry, and what did he rig? People are not considerate enough to acknowledge the person who rigged the first object or when they rigged it. And I’m not talking about elections, so settle down. I really need to know who Jerry was.

Debt ceiling: We have a ceiling in our house. I’m looking at it right now. It’s permanent, and it doesn’t move for obvious reasons. Raising it would be a monumental undertaking, and we would only raise it in an extreme situation. If things were piling all the way up to our ceiling, we wouldn’t raise it. We’d get rid of some of our stuff. I’d like to know if Washington DC politicians have ceilings in their homes.

Swiss Army knife: Do they have an army in Switzerland? I thought it was all secret bank accounts, fancy watches, and chocolate. What kind of battles do they fight? Why are there a corkscrew and a toothpick on the knife?

Machado Money: Manny Machado of the San Diego Padres just signed an extension that will pay him $350 million over eleven years. That’s on top of the $150 million he’s made with the team since signing with them in 2019. A half a billion dollars to play baseball. The jewelry he wears in batting practice is probably worth more than the 2022-2023 City of Lodi budget. I’d like to figure out how we get some of that Machado money to buy a helicopter for the police department and a dome for Zupo Field.

Unidentified Aerial Phenomena: We used to call them UFOs. What are those things? I mean, if the military doesn’t know, shouldn’t we be concerned? I’ve seen both movie versions of The War of the Worlds (Gene Barry was much better than Tom Cruise) and read the H.G. Wells book in one night. Man, we’re in trouble if someone doesn’t figure out what those tic-tac-looking things are. It might be time we memorize what Klaatu said in The Day the World Stood Still, “Niktu barata niktu,” which is alien for “Which pronouns would you like me to use while addressing you?”

Garbage cans: Now this will be one tough nut to crack. Pray for me. I’m going to try to figure out what exactly goes in my garbage can, when I can put it in my garbage can, which garbage can it goes into, which garbage cans go out to the street each week, and what I am going to do when the stench from my garbage can full of food scraps and dead tomato plants baking in the 105-degree summer heat for a week and smelling like well, you know, let’s just say it’s going to be nasty, knocks my neighbor unconscious.

So as you can see, I’m going to have a busy year tracking down the answers to these burning questions. I am motivated by my desire for enlightenment and the fact that all of you “regular” folks will appreciate my efforts. Godspeed to me.