The Depot of Failed New Year's resolutions

“I got about six more,” Abbot declared as he slammed a stack of unopened envelopes on the counter in front of me. I felt my face twirl into a smirk.

“January is not a good month for New Years Resolutions,” I said. “What were they?”

Abbot shrugged. “I don’t know. We’re not supposed to open them.”

“I open them,” I said. Really, there wasn’t a point in working here if I couldn’t discreetly laugh at all the failed resolutions, but it was strictly against the rules to open the envelopes and Abbot valued the job too much to break rules. He walked past me, smirking and patting me on the shoulder as he did so, and opened the break room coffee cabinet behind me.

“There’s a big lineup today,” he said. “January 16th. Not many people can keep their resolutions past today, even the under-achievers.”

“Tell me about it,” I replied. “On Wednesday I got an envelope that just said drink more water. How lazy do you have to be to mess that up less than a month in?”

Abbot snorted, then said, “that’s pretty good, but you’re not supposed to open the envelope. The rules are very clear. Anyway, it’s your turn.”

“I’ll see if I can find something worse than failing to drink more water,” I teased.

“If you get caught, make sure they know I wasn’t involved,” he replied.

I picked up the box of quarters from the counter with both hands firmly gripped on the bottom of the box, pushed the door open with my shoulder, and swiveled around to face the front desk. There was already someone waiting at the other side; a man, no older than thirty, with a scraggly beard and a mysterious stain on his dark green shirt.

“Welcome to the depot of failed new years resolutions. How can I help you today?”

“‘Bout time,” he said. I could smell the beer in his breath through the glass. He slid a creased envelope under the separator, and after checking it under a flashlight to make sure there was indeed a card in there, I slid him a quarter. He burped uproariously and stumbled away.

“Thanks for coming,” I called weakly. The next woman stepped up. Her hair was cut short, and she was wearing a purple cardigan. I ran the script again. “Welcome to the depot of failed-”

“Save it, kid,” she interrupted. “You realize how bad that name makes us feel about ourselves, right?”

I jeered, “well, lady, maybe don’t fail your incredibly easy new years resolution sixteen days into the year, and then you wouldn’t have to be here in the first place.” Oops.

Her eyes flared. “Excuse you?”

“Ma’am, I am profusely sorry,” I began. There goes my job. Probably. “I don’t know how that happened. I understand that you’re upset, but I hope I can still be of service to you today. How can I help you?”

She rolled her eyes. “What’s your name?” 

“Abe.”

She glanced at the pin on my shirt. “Your name tag says Abigail. You’re a boy, aren’t you?”

I scoffed. “Abe is short for Abigail, which is a gender neutral name. Just like Courtney or Sheila.”

“Whatever. Abe. I’m going to file a complaint against you.” 

She opened her purse, searching through the flaps for her certificate of failure. I grabbed the intercom off the table and announced, “Just a reminder to have your documents ready before you get up to the counter.”

The woman glared at me, her eyes burrowing deep into my soul, before she pulled out an envelope and shoved it past the separator. I slid her a quarter, said the obligatory thank you, and she was on her way.

A lot more people stopped by: An ancient elderly woman that I could barely see, since her height didn’t succeed the height of the counter. A very confused man who tried to trade me a quarter in exchange for someone else’s failed new years envelope. A gothic teenager with pale skin and trust issues who made me prove I had a quarter before giving me a tear-streaked black envelope. The line ended faster than I thought it would, and just as I was about to bring back the nearly depleted box of quarters for a refill, a man came sprinting from around the corner and stopped with his hands gripping the counter as he caught his breath.

“Welcome to the Depot of Failed New Years Resolutions,” I said. He fetched a stack of very sweaty cards from his back pocket, and looked at me, his eyes pleading.

“I don’t have any envelopes,” he begged, “but I really need the coins.” He slid the cards over the separator, face up, and I caught a glimpse of the one on top. It read stop watching Transformers movies.” I looked up at him.

“What’s your name,” I asked.

“Jeremy.”

“Jeremy, you couldn’t last sixteen days without watching a Transformers movie?”

A confused look fell on his face. “They’re really good,” he defended weakly.

“They’re not, though. Plus, I can’t accept these. One resolution per person.”

He said, “I had a lot to work on this year.”

“It’s been sixteen days,” I retorted, flipping to the next card. It read, stop being constipated. “Oh, Jeremy.” I shook my head, flipping to the next card. Before I could read that one, he spoke.

“Can you please just accept these?” He begged.

“I can, but I can only give you one quarter for the entire batch,” I replied. He looked defeated. “Sorry. Not my rules. It’s company protocol.”

The man looked at me silently for a second before relaxing his back. “Fine.”

I smiled and slid a quarter to him. “Thanks for coming,” I called out as he walked away. With the lineup now gone, I stacked all the envelopes, with the bare cards on top, and carried the box of coins in my other hand as I made it into the break room.

Abbot still hadn’t sorted his resolution cards into their corresponding deposit boxes when I returned. He was staring half-heartedly at the wall, coffee in hand. I took a seat across from him and dropped the stack of envelopes on the table.

“Some guy gave me seven resolutions at one time,” I said. “None of them were in envelopes. So I accepted them because technically-”

“-technically you’re not breaking any seals,” he interrupted. “That seems like something you would do.” He took a sip of his coffee. “So, what do they say?”

I fished out the Transformers one and gave it to him. His eyes scanned the card for a few seconds before snickering. “How hard is it to not watch Transformers?” He asked.

“That’s what I said!” I answered. “He told me that they were masterful, and he couldn’t resist them. Does that beat drink more water?”

“Yeah, definitely,” he snickered. “But should we be looking at these? Technically it’s not against the rules, but I feel like we could still get in trouble for doing it.” He took a sip of his coffee, and promptly gave me the signature responsible Abbot face.

“Oh, we’ll be fine. Check this one out,” I said as I passed him the constipation one. He couldn’t help but look, and when he did, his coffee nearly came out of his nose.

“Does that mean he hasn’t taken a shit since the new year? That’s gross.”

I read the next one, the one I hadn’t read yet. It had a crossed out sentence, followed by start working out. I passed it to Abbot. “Can you read what it says under the scribble?”

He squinted and brought the card up to his eyes. He read it slowly, sounding out the words as he went, like it was his first time reading. “Work out more. It says work out more.”

“This man is not having a good year, I’ll tell you that,” I said, followed shortly by a laugh. “His life consists of watching Transformers, being constipated, and giving up on ever working out.

Abbot placed it down. “Okay, what’s the next one?”

“Cry less,” I answered. “That’s all it says.”

Abbot’s face drops. “That one’s actually pretty sad. I wonder if this guy is okay.” He sips his coffee. “Okay, now I’m invested. What’s the next one?”

“Wake up early and don’t waste your weekends sitting in bed,” I said. Abbot frowned.

“I kind of feel bad for making fun of him earlier,” he responded.

“Maybe we should stop with all this.”

“I agree, this guy is getting boring,” I said, as I reached for the stack of envelopes I got from my shift.

“Wait, what do you think you’re doing?” Abbot pestered. I just looked at him before flipping the stack upside down, as to go in chronological order, and picked up the first one. It was bent unevenly and covered in grease stains—it belonged to man in front of the lineup. I opened the envelope before Abbot could say anything.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” he said. After some silence, he asked, “what does it say?”

“Stop drinking,” I read.

Abbot chuckled. “That’s a classic one.”

“The guy who gave it to me reeked of beer and had a weird stain on his shirt,” I told him. His eyebrows raised, creasing his forehead.

“Really? That’s hilarious.”

I grabbed the next one, which didn’t have anything special about it. Abbot didn’t object this time. I broke the seal and read the card. “Be kinder to people.” I chuckled. It made sense. “Given that she’s filing a complaint against me, I’m not surprised by this.”

“She’s what?!”

“She’s filing a complaint against me.”

Abbot’s eyebrows furrowed as he cocked his head slightly. “What did you do?”

“Made fun of her for breaking her resolution.”

He gasped. “Abe!”

I ignored him and reached for the next one. We read envelopes for a while—some of them were hilarious, like the one that read get taller. Some were sad, such as the one that said make my kids love me. A lot of them were repetitive; we encountered about thirty envelopes that said go to the gym. We opened a completely black envelope that read stop conforming to society’s norms, and I matched it with the gothic teenager from before. I found it funny, given that she looked identical to any other gothic kid.

We finished my pile, but Abbot didn’t want to stop. He brought out his pile, and while it was relatively small—about six—he began to read them out loud:

Make friends.

Do a cartwheel.

Free the lobsters from the grocery store.

Wake up earlier.

Play a keytar.

Get good grades.

We went right through his pile, and before we knew it, we were fishing out all the interesting-looking envelopes from the deposit box in the corner, starved for entertainment.

A yellow envelope had a card that read, jump into the back of a taxi and yell FOLLOW THAT CAR!

An envelope with a highly unnecessary postage stamp and address line had a resolution to die later that year because the writer was dreading being so old—Abbot and I couldn’t decide whether to think it was funny or sad.

We opened an envelope that simply said dog. We didn’t know what it meant.

After a while, Abbot said, “Hey, Abe, do you have a quarter?”

I reached over to the box on the table and grabbed one. “Yeah, why?”

“Because I broke my New Year’s Resolution.” He fetched an envelope from his pocket and handed it to me. I opened it. It read, do not break any company protocols. I smirked and gave him the quarter.

"Easy cash," he said.