Every year I make New Year's resolutions and every year I break them. So this year, I'm trying something different -- resolutions for other people. Hey world -- here are the changes I'd like to see YOU make in 2014.
(1) Cell phone owners: No more blathering on your cell in public. This includes public restrooms. I consider the time I spend sitting on the toilet to be both private and sacred. I don't want to hear about your boyfriend, your PMS or your stock portfolio.
(2) Corporations: ax the phone trees. When I phone customer service in 2014, I want to talk to a person (who speaks my language at least as well as I do.) I don't want to talk to a robot. When I phoned the local Apple store customer service department recently, I got a robot who refused to give me the option to talk to a person. Instead, she told me that her name was Julie and proclaimed proudly that she could "understand entire sentences."
"F*ck you, Julie!" I responded.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't understand that last sentence."
In 2014, I want to get an actual human being who will do the appropriate thing if I curse at her, which to call me a witch and hang up on me.
(3) Bankers: Donate every penny of the obscene bonuses you received in 2013 to charity. Buy warm coats and give them to homeless people. Embrace Elizabeth Warren as your personal savior. It's not to late to regain some humanity.
(4) Oprah: Either marry Stedman in 2014 or cut him loose.
(5) Magazines: Stop running articles about people losing weight and people gaining weight. This world is going to hell in a hand basket and the last thing that matters is how plump or lean we are on that particular journey.
(6) I don't want to ever hear, read or even think the word "Kardashian" again. Anywhere. Ever. Got that?
(7) People who Text while Driving: Cut that out. The life you save may be your own. Or even more important, mine. Or the life of the baby in the stroller whose nanny just stepped into the crosswalk and is too busy talking on her cell to notice that you are too busy texting to notice the stop sign you're about to blow through. You get the idea. Put the tiny hand-held device away. Focus your complete attention on driving the large potentially lethal automotive device.
(8) Children who have grown up and are no longer living at home: Phone your mom. Tell her you love her. Even if you don't. (Especially if you don't...)
(9) Library patrons who returned the DVD late, but want to weasel out of paying the fine: Shut up. Pay the fine. Public libraries are a gift and a treasure, and they desperately need funding. Thank you.
(10) Self-loathing straight-identified politicians who vociferously gay bash and sponsor laws that gay bash, and spend every waking moment trying to do and say everything possible to distance themselves from anything even remotely gay: Come out of the closet already. You aren't fooling anybody.
BEST WISHES FOR A HAPPY AND HEALTHY 2014!
Earlier on Huff/Post50: