MINOR PREDICTIONS FOR 2024

By Raymond Lesser

This is the time of year when pundits, economic gurus, and soothsayers make major predictions about who will win the next election, how the stock market will perform and whether or not the world will continue to exist 12 months from now, and if so whether you’ll still be going out with that hottie you met at the Holiday party last weekend. I’ll leave those major prognostications to others. Instead I present these very probable (but minor) predictions for 2024:

YOU WILL GET A PARKING TICKET

Yes, despite your best efforts to keep a baggie full of quarters in the glove compartment which periodically gets pilfered by your son when he goes out for coffee and forgets his wallet, you will park at one of those new “smart” meters that doesn’t take quarters, and the only way to pay for parking is by downloading the “Easy Park” app onto your phone, but the “Easy Park” app won’t download on the first, second or seventh try, so you finally decide to chance it since you’re only going to be gone a few minutes to pick up dry cleaning, but upon return there is a “Smart Meter Maid” giving you a “smart” ticket, which can only be paid online using the “Smart Citizen” app which also refuses to download onto the phone, forcing you to use the “Too Dumb to Figure it Out” option of going to the courthouse to pay the fine. Of course there is nowhere to park anywhere near there that doesn’t use the “Easy Park” app, either.

YOU WILL LEND SOMEONE MONEY WHO WILL NEVER PAY IT BACK

What’s even worse is that when you remind them that they owe you twenty bucks from when you went out to eat and they forgot their credit card they will instead remember that you were the one who borrowed twenty bucks and they still have the IOU to prove it.

YOU WILL LOSE YOUR SHOES

How is it possible to lose your shoes? Obviously you will not lose them while they are on your feet. But at some point you will remove your shoes and put them in the same place that you always put them, and then when you need to rush out the door a few hours later to pick up your kid, (who you forgot you promised to pick up at 3 and it is already ten after) those hush puppies are nowhere to be found. You will search everywhere that shoes can possibly be: by the front door, by the back door, under the couch. Under the rug? Under the table? Where the hell did you take them off? Think! Finally you will give up and go to the closet and grab your fluffy bunny slippers and race out the door and almost run over a squirrel zooming to pick up your kid and then get dirty looks from her and the teachers because you’re the last parent to show up and then you see they’re staring at your feet and wondering if you were just asleep in the middle of the afternoon instead of being a responsible parent. When you bring your surly tweenager home she will kick off her shoes and dump her backpack in the front hall right next to your shoes which are right where you always leave them.

YOU WILL REGRET PURCHASING A PIECE OF ART AT A CRAFT FAIR

What were you thinking? Where exactly did you think you were going to display this gargoyle fountain? Of course it stood out at the artists booth, what grotesquely carved proto-human head spitting a stream of water out their mouth wouldn’t attract immediate attention? But is this really something you want to see in your life on a daily basis? Will you put it in the living room, spitting water into the aquarium? How exactly would that work, and how would the angelfish react to this devilish face hovering over them at all hours? No way in hell is your spouse letting you put this freak in the bedroom, but how about the bathroom? Maybe the gargoyle would remind folks to gargle after they spit out their toothpaste? Next to your workbench in the garage? Really?

YOU WILL WIN SECOND PRIZE IN A BEAUTY CONTEST

Unfortunately you’ll never find out who won the game because your 8 year old nephew will get mad when he lands on Park Place and dump the board on the floor, then refuse to help clean up the mess. This will lead to an argument with your sister about her parenting skills vs. your uncle-ing skills. But in the end there will be chocolate ice cream for everyone.

Read the Jan / Feb 2024 Issue Online