Alone and Unobserved

New Year’s Eve in America is boring–just try the Italian version, which involves standing on one’s balcony, shooting off guns, lighting firecrackers, and THROWING LARGE APPLIANCES OVER THE EDGE. It’s true! I’ve lived through two Italian New Years, and they are packed with the kind of excitement that often kills people.

My New Year’s Eve was even more boring than the American standard. I thought about going to a club, but I can’t stand being in clubs alone (I need a buffer zone of two or more friends to protect me from the ravenous club vultures), and the times I’ve gone to a club hoping to run into friends are the only times I’ve ever gone to a club and not run into a friend.

There was only one more choice: throw a one-person pizza party! So my New Year’s Eve celebration involved a medium Pizza-Hut pizza (because my standby, Sicilia Pizza, is closed on Sundays), a bottle of root beer, two packets of cookies, and one bag of popcorn. For entertainment, there was Strangers with Candy, the movie, which was occasionally hilarious and occasionally eye-rollingly stupid. When the movie ended, I yawned and went to bed, my stomach full to bursting with greasy pizza and popcorn, and sugary cookies and soda pop.

An hour or so after I went to bed, I suddenly woke up. I had been sound asleep, but I had distinctly heard a door slam. If burglars were in my house, I reasoned, they wouldn’t be so stupid as to slam doors, would they? Of course, after glancing at the clock, I realized that a) it was not a door slamming I had heard, b) it was 12:02 am, and c) I had missed the chance to ring in the new year right at midnight. I yawned again, shrugged, and went to sleep, secure in the knowledge that, while Italy might not be there in the morning, the new year would be.