The Annual “Flushing-In” of the New Year…

I have an odd tradition that I observe when it becomes the New Year.
It started back on New Year’s Eve 1979. I was ten years old and for the first time my Mother offered to wake me and my younger sister Neddie up to see the ball drop in Times Square. The only catch was, we had to go to bed at our normal time and she would wake us up at 11:55pm. Being ten years old, I didn’t really have a whole lot of choice in the matter–I went to bed.
11:55pm came around and Mom woke us up: Neddie first and then me shortly thereafter. Being kids, the first thing each of us had to do was use the bathroom. Since Neddie got up first, she got the bathroom first.
Little did I know then that this one event would still impact my life twenty-six years later.
Neddie was in the bathroom for what seemed like an eternity while I was in the hallway dancing. When she finally got out of the bathroom it was close to 11:59. I got in there…and…well…I tried to finish as fast as I could. (I was ten–cut me some slack, already!) When I flushed and made my way to the living room, the ball had already dropped and it was now 1980.
I missed it.
So, near as I could figure looking at the time, I figured that I flushed the toilet pretty much right at the stroke of midnight. I was kind of proud of this at the time because I figured that I was the first person on the entire Eastern Seaboard to have flushed a toilet.
(I know, I know…I have issues. I’m well aware of this and I’m at the point now where I just embrace it.)
Each year since it has become my own little tradition to flush the toilet at the stroke of the New Year. I’ve only missed doing it twice. (Those times that I missed, Neddie has done it for me. Seems only right since it’s her fault this tradition began in the first place!) These days the flush is more symbolic than anything else; sending the old year and its events swirling away and hoping that the new year is a lot better.
So that’s my wacky little way to start the new year off right. The tradition has been carried on for another year and the old year has been flushed away. It occurs to me that in 26 years, I’ve never actually seen the ball make it all the way to the bottom.
2006 is here and let’s hope that she’s a far sight better than the year we just ended.
Time for bed. Happy New Year, one and all…
William Smith
ConservativeBlogger.com