New Year’s Eve is a lot like prom night. You make a ton of promises but once your pants are back on you can’t remember a single one. So why do we continue to make New Year’s resolutions? You know you’re not going to keep them. Should we feel obligated to these resolutions? It really depends upon whether you’re a better person than I am and, let’s face it, who isn’t?

Five Bad Resolutions

• Joining a gym? Nice intention. Bad idea. This is absolutely the worst time to join a gym. The weight rooms are packed with overweight people who would kill to be home in their La-Z Boy. In 3 or 4 weeks, if you still want to join, it will be much easier finding a parking space.

• Go on a diet? Are you kidding me? The Super Bowl is just around the corner. The best parties are held by fans who haven’t run a mile since high school. As far as I’m concerned if God intended all of us to be slender, He wouldn’t have created bowling.

• Swearing off profanity? This might be easier if you never bothered to get a driver’s license. The world is full of morons in a hurry and swearing at them beats getting the AK-47 out of the trunk.

• Stop drinking? I’m on my third marriage and if it wasn’t for alcohol I’d be heading toward my fourth. If your friends are telling you alcohol should be illegal tell them prohibition made Al Capone and Joe Kennedy millionaires. Also my neighbor’s dad, a World War II veteran, makes a hefty living off my empty Heineken bottles.

• Promises? I don’t need no stinking promises. We’ve all made them. I promised my last article “Christmas Again?” would be the last you readers would ever see. So I am a weak man. Every morning I wake up in L.A. dreaming of Coeur d’Alene. Well, that and playing tennis with Kate Upton. Writing for the Coeur d’Alene Press is my only great escape since Kate Upton won’t reply to my emails. I’ve heard there is a restraining order in the works but you can’t believe everything you read on a celebrity’s Facebook page.

Two Good Resolutions

• Use a turn signal. It’s in your best interest. After working as an ambulance driver, long distance truck driver, Hollywood tour guide and limo driver I can tell you the best safety tip is to assume the driver behind you has a two-digit IQ, is blind in one eye and holding a half-empty pint of Wild Turkey in one hand.

• Be considerate of others. They used to call it common courtesy. We talk about the Golden Rule but how many of us actually practice it anymore? Maybe in Coeur d’Alene. Here are just two examples of common courtesy that could change our world:

ATMs: If you have several transactions and bundles of cash use a bank. There are people standing in line behind you who just want $20 for a meal at Panda Express. Do you want that guy in the ripped Ozzy Osbourne T-Shirt at the end of the line knowing you carry a wad of cash? Trust me, I worked as a body guard for Ozzy Osbourne in 1982 and that is never a good idea. (“Diary of a Madman Tour”)

Grocery stores: When you see that brightly lit sign, “15 Items or Less” don’t pull up with 100 items in your cart and then blame the mistake on your cataracts. Look behind you. Those people who are following the rules deserve better. In a perfect world the store would be able to impound your car. That would straighten this mess out in a hurry.

Movie theaters: Turn your cellphones off and don’t turn them back on until the closing credits are running. The world will still be here if you don’t respond to texts, calls and emails for a couple of hours. Nothing is more infuriating then spending $14 (Senior Citizen discount) to watch a movie and then just as I’m finally escaped into the film, some jerk has to open their smart phone, bright light ripping me away. Call me a radical thinker but I believe this is why we have Tasers. They should give out Tasers at the concession stand. I’d pay for that!

Happy New Year!