CESSANGE — A man from Luxembourg who spent much of December preparing to adopt six New Year’s resolutions to improve his well-being has already broken them all, according to the man himself.
“I had set my alarm for 5 a.m. today to start a new exercise routine, but I was so tired that all I could do was stare at the dumbbell set Meg had bought me for Christmas, thinking how she set me up for failure,” said Mark Broch, 38. “I stormed into the bedroom and gave her a good tongue-lashing for being so terrible, thereby breaking my first two resolutions: get in shape and be a nice husband.”
“I felt awful when she stormed off to work, so I raided the pantry and discovered a box of stale chocolates from Aldi that expired three years ago, and I sat down on the floor and ate them all in one go, then went to sleep on the sofa, breaking resolutions number three and four,” he said.
Broch awoke to the realization that he was going to be late for work and, panicking, gnawed his fingernails down until his fingertips were pink and raw. Horrified at how spectacularly he was failing at sticking to his resolutions, he poured himself a tumbler of scotch.
“Numbers five and six,” he said.
Broch says he was so angry with himself that on his way to work he stopped at a gas station to buy a pack of Marlboros and chain-smoked five of them before he got to his office.
“And I’m not even a smoker,” he said.
By noon, Broch was overcome by so much shame that he refused an invitation to lunch with colleagues, instead finding a tub of butter in the break room fridge which he microwaved and proceeded to drink.
“There’s always next year,” he later told himself.
Experts say that nearly 90 percent of Luxembourg residents have already broken this year’s resolutions, and it’s likely that the only reason the other 10 percent have not is because they are still too hungover to get out of bed, or because they spent so much money during the holidays that they cannot afford their vices until they get paid in three weeks.
