Happy New Year

Last night at midnight, all over the country and the world, when the ball dropped and the confetti went off, thousands of hot single guys raised their beer bottles, or mugs, or maybe even martini glasses, but probably just beer bottles, and toasted the new year. They tossed their hair, they flexed their biceps, they flashed their white teeth. And somewhere near each one of them, just off to the side and slightly behind, was a schlumpy, dumpy girl with her glass raised too.

She was looking at him expectantly, but not too expectantly, like ready but not too ready, kinda like there but not there. She was hoping he remembered that it's tradition to wait until midnight strikes and then grab the nearest girl and kiss her like she's never been kissed before. She hoped in her dumpy little fluffy heart that if there were fireworks going off outside when their lips met, that there just might be fireworks in his heart when their lips parted. She'd dreamed of it, planned for it, edged her way inconspicuously over toward him for the last twenty minutes, even danced to "California Girls" just to blend in. Or maybe that was just me. And I really  just moved my knees around, which doesn't even count.

Her heart rate was elevated, her palms were damp, she had just the right amount of lip gloss -- not too greasy, not too dry. But then at midnight, in all the cheering and the people trying to see the TV, the idiot turned away and high fived his friends, or maybe he took another suck off his beer or whatever cocktail, or started telling some loud joke, or went to get another piece of pizza. In Greg's case, he didn't really do anything. He just stood there looking broodingly out the window. Not kissing me. Not kissing anyone.

Embarrassing. And I thought to myself: This is the last time.

This is the last New Year's Eve I'm standing shyly beside the elbow of some guy who doesn't even know anything about kissing traditions, waiting to get kissed. This is the year I get a boyfriend, so that when that confetti gets thrown, I'm already in the arms of someone who knows he's supposed to kiss me.

Let the record show that on this day it was decided. I have one resolution, and one only. By this time next year, Greg better be mine.