The Year of the Aging Vacuum Cleaner

At the New Year's Eve party on our block, my neighbor Claes confided that he's feeling very optimistic about 2008. "I'm pretty sure it has to suck less than this last year. Or the one before ."

And thus we ring in 2008 as the year of the aging vacuum cleaner.

Though he's been in the US for a zillion years, Claes is actually a Swede, and like a lutefisk swimming upstream to spawn, he's recently started working at the local IKEA. Nevertheless, he joined the rest of us in celebrating in that most American of fashions, by setting stuff on fire.















This was fun and all, but didn't hold a roman candle to the party I'd been to earlier in the evening, where the celebrating really took off. As in, took off every stitch of clothing.




















What's most disturbing to me about this image is that it was snapped just minutes after I left the party. Were the guests waiting for me to go before they got naked? Is this what happens when you lose porno-charades, which is what everyone was playing when I left? Is it maybe what happens when you win porno-charades?

Or had Marc just torn his clothes off and started running down the street hoping to call me back to him? It's a flattering thought, but honestly I doubt it, as he himself is no aging vacuum cleaner, if you know what I mean.

Still, whichever party you prefer, it's an auspicious start to the year.