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Health & Fitness

Ain't No Quitting for the Quitter

Americans never quit.

As children, we are bombarded with quips about quitting. Apparently quitting is akin to saying I can’t, a statement that got my hide skinned several times when I was a young quitter.

Quitting doesn’t always accomplish its goals. I quit drinking 25 years ago, but somehow I still wake up with a hangover after attending any party where drinking is involved. I might as well drink and have a good time, which I can’t remember, rather than wake up with a hangover I can’t forget.

So if quitting is bad, why do we start each year, trying to quit everything we like to do? You are aware of New Year’s resolutions aren’t you? I quit making them and that was the only one I’ve kept. I’d like to stop waking up feeling 51, but I’d need to quit breathing to do it, something I’m not ready to try.

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I’ve got too much to accomplish to quit now. I need to win the Nobel Peace Prize for simply winning a record breaking amount in the lottery — first, I need to be able to afford to play the lottery. I need to win the Publishers Clearing House Sweepstakes; it would help if they had my address or if I had any idea what they’re clearing out in the first place.

So what will it mean if, by some miracle, all Americans could keep their resolutions? If someone covered the country sprinkling magic quitting dust on all of us? First, the cigarette companies would crash, taking the fiber filter and paper companies with them. What exactly are those fiber filters made of and do they serve any purpose, other than filtering out the things you smoke for in the first place? I’ve long suspected the cigarette companies are hedging their bets and either support the companies that produce cigarette cessation products or own them outright.

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The junk food companies would be next. No more Little Dippies or Kitty Kats. No more plain, pickled, vinegared, BBQed, cheesed, chillied, smothered, covered, chunked or chocolate potato chips. No more Big Whops, Whop Jr. Mac’s or those little Krystcastles we eat by the bags full. No more Poke, Cepsi, Mountain don’t, eighteen up, Grape Thigh High or any color that’s been crushed. No more Dead Bull or Monster Urine, you’ve got all the energy you’re going to get, get used to it. What would such a catastrophe do to our medical system? We’d have homeless doctors.

I’m pretty sure all diet companies are owned by the companies listed above. I can give up a Turtle, but you should be very careful about coming for my mac and cheese, banana pudding or my ketchup and French fries. I firmly believe that French fries are the reasons we continue to be allowed to possess firearms. The American public and the free world will stand for many things, but when French fries are outlawed a new American revolution will begin. If you don’t believe me, place something on the ballot involving fries and you’ll see the highest voter turnout in history.

Stress levels would evaporate and credit card debt would be a thing of the past. What’s so bad about that? The credit card companies would crash and I’m convinced they’ve used all the interest they’ve been ripping us off for to buy most of the free world. Well, not most, China owns 52 percent, paid for by the interest on the loan we owe them. The credit card companies own 33 percent and the insurance companies own the other 75.

I know those numbers don’t add up, but isn’t that the real problem, the numbers don’t add up most of the time? The average American is 17 pounds overweight, so multiply that times seven billion and you’d get the collective amount of weight we’d lose. I can’t do it, couldn’t figure out how to say the number if I could and don’t really have any desire to learn, thank you. Where in the world would all that weight go?

Everyone in the country would be a student studying business or criminal justice, but no one would be working — wait people seem to be taking that resolution pretty seriously already. The U.S. Constitution would be amended to grant every fingernail the right to live, grow long and prosper.

I guess it’s a good thing Americans are not quitters — see how many problems this would create? We’d become a non-smoking, non-drinking, smiling country full of disgruntled postal workers with long finger nails. Wait, we’d be Canadians at that point or more aptly, French Canadians. Americans quit quitting long ago and I’m proud we did. Remember, quitters never win and winners never quit. I’ll quit for the moment and rest my case. One last statement, quitting and resolutions are downright un-American and should be avoided at all costs.

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