New Year's Fails

For years, me and my brother have spent the last seconds of the year doing something weird, and not stop until just after the countdown ends. We then lift our arms up and scream:

It's great IN THEORY. It never works out how I want it to, but for David it never fails.




2007: Drink water upside down


I practiced for hours until midnight. I worked on my balancing, not spilling my glass of water, not smacking my back into the wall when I flipped over, things like that. I missed most of EVERY Christmas special show that was showing that night:

David was watching TV, just drinking Solo and Coke while laughing at my idiotic attempts to slam into the wall whilst avoiding the hanging photos, and grabbing a glass of water without spilling it - ALL UPSIDE DOWN:

I had no idea what he was going to do.


Then, it began. I was ready to flip, I had been practicing so long I could taste victory and bragging rights already. As soon as the counter read "5" I launched into the wall, resting my head on a pillow. By "3" I was reaching out for the glass, and by "2" I was drinking. I had to keep going for several seconds... I could do it, I COULD DO IT!

Then, David revealed how he was going to spend the crossover. As soon as the annoucer said "1", he unleashed the loudest, longest burp I had ever heard.

Me, swallowing water at the time, exploded into laughter and choked on all the water I was drinking at the time. Some got on the pillow, some on the floor, but most went all over my face and lungs.

So, in 2008, David had been burping since the year before, and Sean had been laughing/choking/dying.

2008: Be airborne


Seemed simple enough. We leap from the ledge near our pool just after the announcer says "1" and we'll be in the air during the crossover.

However, we didn't have a TV near the pool. So we had our dad carry a small one out, but the nearest it could be was still over 10m away. We had to turn the volume up REALLY high to hear anything. It was lucky it was New Year's eve and all, because everyone was partying and nobody cared how loud we played our midget TV. If anything, it paled in comparison.

So there we were, from about 3 minutes before the countdown, standing sopping wet above our pool (of course we'd been swimming earlier). We looked like idiots, but lucky nobody could see into our garden save for creepy well-hidden pedophiles.

And then, midnight approached. We cranked the volume up and listened intently. We prepared to jump, listening to the TV. We stood for what seemed like eternity, waiting for that countdown to begin...

And then, amid the loudness of the New Year's special, we heard, from across the road, behind our house and pretty much in every direction around us, the screams and yells of our neighbours celebrating the New Year.

We glared at our father. He checked the channel. We were tuned into Channel X (won't say on the internet), the channel famous for being located in central Australia. ONE. HOUR. BEHIND.


We had missed the countdown. We had wasted our New Year's moment. From 2008 to 2009, me and my brother stood like idiots. We had waited. We, ladies and gentlemen, had FAILED through the crossover. Me and my brother were the first failures of 2009, and NONE OF YOU FORGET IT!

2009: Spinning around a baseball bat.


You know how some idiots press their forehead on the end of a baseball bat and spin around until they're so dizzy they actually become lighter due to what I deem "The Helicopter Effect"?

Yeah, I was going to do that. My dad said:

So I gave him my best poker face for several seconds...

... and came back with an inflatable baseball bat.

I had won! For the first time in several years I had won the year! My brother had by then entered his 'derro' phase and didn't do silly things like that anymore, so he was sitting on the couch with his laptop, being derro.

So, I spun around during the last 4 seconds of the countdown and through the next 2 seconds of 2010.

I felt so triumphant that I dropped the bat and stood in my most dramatic I-WIN-YOU-SUCK pose...

... and promptly fell into the Christmas tree, which we had not yet packed away from 5 days ago. 

This maded my brother to laugh so hard he dropped his laptop...

... and my father to start yelling at me for being so irresponsible and childish.

So, our last 3 years of attempting to be awesome through the crossovers have been pretty crap. Just you wait until this year, though. I'm hanging out with all my friends this year, so it's gonna be epic. Maybe an epic fail. I'll let you all know how it goes when the time comes.