New Year’s Evolution
Carol comes home from work and drops a notepad on my face. I try my best to focus on the page while she takes a frozen lasagna out of the fridge and talks about the habits of highly effective people. According to Carol there are seven; also according to Carol I possess none of them. I take her accusation that I am not highly effective in stride.
Listed on the notepad in Carol’s prim handwriting is a categorized list of New Year’s resolutions. I am about to voice enthusiasm for her commitment to self-improvement when I notice that the New Years resolutions are, in fact, for me.
“What’s this?” I ask pleasantly enough, flipping through several dense pages of madness. Carol preheats the oven for the lasagna and explains that I need to set goals for myself, then meet those goals.
“You need focus,” I hear from the kitchen. Carol appears in the doorway, a look of concern on her face. “I’m serious, John. If you’d just apply yourself you could do so much.” I scan her face for any hint of sarcasm before returning my attention to the itemized list of my faults.
Among Carol’s proposed resolutions is the ominous-sounding Only drink socially. This has been underlined twice for my benefit, as if I had a reading disability that prevented me from understanding any sentence that wasn’t passionately illustrated.
Only drink socially confuses me. I’ve always seen myself as both rakish and charming while under the influence of alcohol—two qualities that strike me as the very definition of social. Carol explains that drinking socially means not drinking by myself all day. How this detracts from my social life is beyond me. I’m an excellent conversationalist, and drinking alone only brings out this quality in spades. Carol’s reasoning dictates that I spend my time entertaining guests and freshening drinks all day, as if the only rationale for having a few beers before noon is hosting an energetic social event in the living room minutes later.
I express concern that I’ll be able to look for work when I’m filling ice cube trays and moving the furniture for games of Charades. My days are already a flurry of job-hunting activity—sometimes I’ll concentrate on the couch for hours, thinking up questions I might get asked at a job interview and the inventive answers I intend to supply.
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“It looks like you’ve been out of work for over a year, Mr. Eaton. That must be very difficult for you.”
“Perhaps for others,” I’ll say with humility. “Personally, I thrive on adversity.”
“That’s fascinating. Would you like a scotch?”
“Oh, don’t get up on my account. I’ve brought my own.” We’ll share a knowing laugh at this, and I’ll fill two tumblers of scotch from my briefcase to toast our like-minded sensibilities while he busies himself dotting the i’s on a contract.
When I get bored of mental preparation I like to challenge myself with riddles to stay sharp. Riddle time typically leads to naptime, which continues uninterrupted until Carol gets home from work and is furious.
Carol, true to her pessimistic nature, remains unconvinced that I’ve improved on her New Year’s resolutions, and implies sabotage. Chief among her complaints is my alteration of Pick a career path into Have more sex with Carol, and she accuses me of insinuating sex with her is work. I explain that I find sex with her very enjoyable; I just thought she should pay me for it. This opens up a whole new avenue of debate, and I am soon defending myself for still being between jobs. Our discussion ends with Carol looking up the word ‘between’ in the dictionary.
“In an intermediate space, position, or time,” she explains. I get distracted by the origin of ‘between’. It comes from the Middle English word bit-wean, I discover. ‘Wean’. I like that, as it sums up my professional life perfectly. I am becoming accustomed to finding sustenance in a manner other than by sucking.
While Carol incorporates the dictionary further into the debate, I make my first mistake, assuming her silence in looking up the word ’shiftless’ is an indication that she’s calmed down to her usual state of mild exasperation. I wrap up my side of the argument with the truism that seeking a new career path is time-consuming and thirsty work, and by its very definition (the route or course along which something travels) I am making slow progress. I point out that Carol’s own career path, which has to date led her to a job as a secretary at a children’s hospital, is also one of slow but eventual progress.
Carol stops in mid-search and looks up from the page. Apparently this conclusion is my second mistake.
If ‘evolution’ is my new buzzword, ‘hot dogs’ is a close second. I find them ridiculously easy to prepare and decide to make them a staple. By themselves, a rejection of pants and hot dog-based diet symbolize little. Together, they resonate with the clarion ring of independence.
During my mental preparation time I watch a nature show called ‘The Howler Monkey: Nature’s Little Rascal’. The program is aimed at children aged 5-10 and doesn’t concern itself with a lot of hard facts, but I manage to learn that Howler monkeys come from Argentina, eat leaves and figs and, if the Narrator is to be believed, are quick to engage in monkey business. The stock footage seems to bear his theory out.
True to their name, a Howler monkey howls an awful lot. Being aimed at juveniles, the show doesn’t dwell on the reason for all the shouting, but I conclude it’s probably sexual in nature rather than the product of anger. Hanging around in trees all day eating leaves doesn’t give you much to get riled up about.
According to the show, 75% of a Howler monkey’s time is spent resting, 20% feeding and 5% with social activities. I like their moxie.
I grab the notepad off the coffee table and write down a new resolution before I forget: Get a monkey. I can’t imagine it’s easy to find one, and a difficult quest is just what I need to take my mind off of my hectic schedule. I scribble onto the page, while in the background the narrator explains that Howler monkeys are highly resourceful, but playful when the occasion presents itself.
I’d like to tell myself that my motive in attempting to own a monkey is nothing but a need for companionship; but in truth, since Carol left the apartment could use a little picking up. ‘Highly resourceful’ tells me it’ll probably be able to work a vacuum cleaner, while ‘playful’ suggests I should try to make vacuuming a game to keep it engrossed. There will be no monkey business while the carpet’s dirty.
Occasionally one of the monkeys, overcome by all the attention and possibly misjudging the tastes of his audience, gets an adventurous look in his eye and starts masturbating. A nearby zookeeper explains that masturbating is discouraged by management, but difficult to control. I make a note of this. He also tells me about the monkey cage, after I feign casualness and ask if it’s possible for a monkey to escape. It is heavily fortified; the only way out is through a door, which the zookeepers use for feeding.
Is the door locked? I ask. I am told it is. Monkeys are able to open doors. I make a note of this.
Once many years ago one of the staff forgot to lock the door behind her, explains the zookeeper. Two monkeys escaped, and it took three hours to find and sedate them. The zoo was in a panic. Are monkeys on the loose dangerous? I ask.
The zookeeper shrugs. “I dunno. I just sweep up here, man. I guess so. Yeah, they could be dangerous.”
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I get excited at the news, already jettisoning the butler outfit in my mind and replacing it with dangerous-looking military fatigues.
I bombard the man with questions. How dangerous? Would they attack adults, or would the size difference steer them towards smaller prey, like children? “Like babies? I dunno. Yeah, sure. A monkey could take out a baby no problem.” He makes several vague hand gestures, apparently attempting to illustrate the ease with which a monkey could take out a baby. I make furious notes.
I am eating a raw hot dog in the dark when I notice a message from Carol flashing on my answering machine. Carol. She’d let herself back into the apartment to grab a few things and had noticed my application from the zoo (I’d briefly toyed with the idea of gaining the trust of the zoo staff, then sneaking a monkey out in a garbage bag, but abandoned it as needlessly complex).
“I’m glad to see you’re taking an interest in your life again, John,” she says. “You were always so good with animals.” Would I like to meet up for coffee, she asks?
I contemplate the offer in the dark, munching thoughtfully on my hot dog, before ripping the phone from its cradle.