>I’ll Bet Your New Year’s Eve was Better Than Mine

>Well, despite all of your thoughtful best wishes, my cork was not popped last night, ladies and gents.

After a lovely dinner of Champagne Shrimp and Pasta, my husband went upstairs to “lie down for an hour.” And that was that. I didn’t see him again until 2006.

I welcomed the New Year alone on the sofa, bummed by the realization that Dick Clark has finally turned into an old, slurring, raspy-voiced man. With that, the last small shred of my childhood disintegrated into dust.

My 15-year-old and I exchanged morose e-mails throughout the night. She and her sister are visiting their mom, who left the girls at 10pm last night for her overnight shift. We agreed that both our New Year’s Eves pretty much sucked.

“I can’t believe Dad went to sleep!!!” she wrote, “But at least he’s in slumber. 12 is awake and really, really mad at me.”

Nothing new there.

My parents (an hour ahead in the Eastern Time Zone) called me at about 11:30 my time. They had just returned from a New Year’s Eve celebration at their country club down the road. Buzzed on champagne, they were merry and talkative.

“Lucinda, Uncle Paul and his wife drove down here from Kentucky,” my mom said. “He’s staying with Mother downstairs in her apartment. And you’ll never guess what he did.”

Uncle Paul is my grandmother’s 80-year-old brother.

“What did he do?”

“He had the nerve to show up at the front gate of my neighborhood in a toupee and no teeth! And he gave them my name!”

“Well, he had to get in somehow,” I said.

“But the nerve to show up like that!” she blustered.

“You think Bob Cobb the security guard is going to care that your 80-year-old uncle showed up with no teeth?!”

“I would never show up in someone else’s community like that!” she said boldly. “I haven’t even gone downstairs to see him!”

“How long has he been there?”

“Three days.”

“And you’re not going to see him?”

“No!”

“I’ve talked to him a few times,” Dad said mildly. “He said he had a sore in his mouth and he’s only putting in his teeth to eat.”

“Well, mom, you should be thankful he’s at least keeping up appearances with a toupee.”

“It’s a 20-year-old toupee!” she stammered. “It’s all… caddywampus on his head!”

“The story grows…” I said. “You know this is going to come back to haunt you when you’re 80 and you have no teeth.”

“Honey, I’m spending a lot of money to keep these teeth!”

They both laughed and we said our goodbyes.

After I stood in front of the TV with a glass of champagne and self-consciously counted aloud from ten to one, I went upstairs to get ready for bed. I was exhausted.

In the bathroom, I turned out the light, flushed the toilet and heard a strange gurgling sound as I headed for the bedroom. “Oh NO!” I said, right before hearing water splash onto the bathroom tiles.

The toilet had overflowed.

I can tell already that 2006 is going to be a great year.