The reality of New Years eve is rapidly approaching and with it comes the tradition of resolutions. I don\'t even know what a resolution is but dictionary.cambridge.org tells me it\'s a decision made with strong determination.
Strong determination? No. That\'s not me. Most of my resolutions are lucky to survive a couple of days. Maybe I just don\'t do things with strong determination. I\'m lily livered. I kind of cruise willy-nilly through life and wait for higher powers to direct my true course. I hope some inner voice or clarion announcement will magically appear and I will follow because it is the true voice, not because I have strong determination.
On top of the New Years resolutions crisis, I also have a cold that hasn\'t gone away completely for like six weeks now. Of course I can\'t just stay in bed and drink lots of fluids and chicken soup and stop making loud histrionic noises (sometimes accompanied with swearing) every time I cough or sneeze. Not only do I claim some ordained duty to work 24 hours a day, my family claims I must buck up and go to Aunt Margaret\'s for Christmas dinner where everyone drinks and gets loud but the food is really good.
So there I am snorpeling and talking through my nose when cousin Jane asks me how I am. Now this woman is a real power house pharmaceutical business consultant. She is truly knowledgeable and rational. After I get out my gargled whine in reply to her question, she launches right in to tell me exactly what I\'m supposed to do to get healthy again. There is no question in her mind. She has a strong determination and I have a strong aversion to women telling me how to live my life.
I also recognize her as a focused thinker so I ask point blank, "Why do women always tell men what to do?" Now in some circumstances, this could be a very bad decision on my part and a high pitched Christmastime family party does seem like a dangerous social mine field to lob such a foolhardy question into. But I\'m sick; maybe a bit delirious. Family politics isn\'t my strong point.
"Because that is what women have been put on earth to do," she replies without even taking a breath.
Okay. I\'ve met my match. I don\'t take Cousin Jane\'s words as simply some feminist or motherly view of the world that I\'ll try to dismiss. After all, she is a consultant. And I start to realize that from a strictly empirical observation, what she said was true. It is very clear to me that women tell men what to do as an imperative of the very fact of the existence of men and women.
So I agree with her. "That\'s an indisputable fact," I say. She smiles and nods and proceeds to list all the ailments her husband has suffered in the last few years and exactly what she told him to do about them and they are a panoply of horrifying conditions. She is proud of her acumen at managing his diseases with resolve. And she gets away with all of that despite the fact that he is a consultant too.
That brings me back to my cold as I sit in the HMO clinic on Sunday with my box of Kleenex because my wife told me to do that. After all, Cousin Paul did have a bacterial infection in his \'cold\' and you can never tell about pneumonia. But alas, it is mass production health care on Sunday and it doesn\'t look good for seeing a doctor or nurse at all today after a few hours of waiting. I\'m getting a crook in my neck from jerking around from my lousy position in the pecking order of waiting room seats to watch the door open hoping that someone in green scrubs will have the mercy to call my name.
Eventually I do get my three minute session with the doctor who is really quite knowledgeable and concerned and gives me a prescription for antibiotics. And I hate to admit it but that worked. In two days I feel like a 25 year old and I also have my New Years resolution:
Always listen to women.
