Karen's New Year
Hi, guys. I’ll be back to snarking Farewell, Dawn soon, but I was feeling a teensy bit festive.
Chapter 1
Karen starts off the book by saying that it’s a day after Christmas and how she feels sad because her favorite holiday is over. Then she remembers her presents and cheers up. I remember when the Christmas tree used to packed with presents for my brother and I, but now that I don’t play with toys there’s not a lot to get me. I’m not allowed to ask for books. This year I got three candles, Pokemon Omega Ruby, a Starbucks gift card, and some money, which is pretty much all I asked for. I’m easy to satisfy. Watson calls and asks if Karen and Andrew can come over on New Year’s for a party. Karen goes to ask her mom, but she’s a little hesitant because her parents usually fight over who the kids spend holidays with. I feel a little bad for Karen because it is a shitty situation when your parents fight. Lisa says yes and asks if Watson can take the kids for a few days so she and Seth can go skiing and have a little bit of peace and quiet. Seriously, my younger cousins came over for Christmas and they were making so much noise my ears were ringing. I’m sure that’s what living with Karen is like.
Chapter 3
Karen gets self important when she realizes that Andrew doesn’t know what New Years Eve is when he’s almost five. I guess at that age you’re supposed to know about all the holidays by then. I’d like to remind Karen that since she’s only seven, there’s a bunch of stuff she doesn’t know that’s probably common knowledge to other people. I’d also like to point out that it can take an embarrassingly long time for people to figure something out. I still believed in Santa until I was twelve or eleven and my dad got into an argument with my mom and shouted that he was Santa. My brother was upset. In hindsight I’m not sure if it was because he’d found out Santa wasn’t real or because or parents were fighting or both. I didn’t give a shit that Santa wasn’t real. Truth be told, I was kind of paranoid I’d be getting too old to get presents, but I figured my parents would still hook me up. Luckily, I don’t ask for much.
It also took me a really long time to figure out my aunt’s name was Angela and not Annabelle. We always just called her Ann for short, and my mom called her Annabelle so I assumed that Ann was short for Annabelle and not Angela. I also have a hard time describing certain foods from my mom’s country. I’ve referred to one street food as a messy thingy. Apparently it’s some sort of sandwich.
Karen takes the time to explain what New Year’s is and says that she’s very patient with Andrew. She tells Andrew they’re going to stay up until twelve o clock and she says it like it’s a huge deal. To kids their age, it is. I remember when I thought staying out until one in the morning was late. There was this one time we went to a party that my mom’s friend threw and we left a little after midnight, which was apparently really early. I’m glad we did. Whenever I get dragged to a party it usually consists of people I don’t know and music I don’t like and me huddling in a corner praying we leave soon. Now staying up until twelve isn’t a huge deal for me. I’m mostly a night owl.
Chapter 4
Karen and Andrew get dropped off at the big house. I’m pretty sure if I left Karen’s presence I’d be like, “Can you hear the silence? It’s so beautiful,” or “I think I can hear birds sing. I’d forgotten what that sounded like.” Charlie invites them all to go get party supplies and Karen asks if Hannie can come. Charlie says yes because after Kristy he’s basically resigned himself to being his sister’s personal bitch. I’m shocked Charlie isn’t permanently shackled to his car with a bottle to pee in. Kristy tells Karen that they have to think up New Years resolutions and seeing as how batshit Karen gets in this book, I’m betting Kristy is ruing the day she ever mentioned that. If this were BSC verse Kristy, I’m sure she’d have resolutions to make the BSC even more cult like and strict, but this version seems to be a bit more laid back.
Chapter 5
Kristy explains about resolutions to Karen. I learned that lots of people join the gym during January because of their resolutions to get in shape, and then by February they’re like, “Fuck this shit,” and quit. I basically stopped making New Year’s resolutions a while ago. Don’t get me wrong, there are things I need to improve on, but I don’t feel like waiting for the new year to do it. Sometimes I just have to do it. For example, I’m a nervous driver. My mom says I should drive more so I can get more experience. She had me drive a huge block so I’d feel more comfortable driving. She didn’t make me wait until the new year to do it. After I’d gotten my license, she showed me where to go and called me every day to make sure I’d done it. I also didn’t wait until New Year’s to start job hunting, but I’m planning to step up my efforts. I kind of put it on the backburner because we had holiday plans, but now that the plans are over, I can focus more on getting a full time job. Or running a drug ring. I’ve been waiting until January to start revising my nanowrimo novel, though.
Karen gets all excited about New Year’s resolutions because she likes to make promises and keep them. I’m pretty sure she’s broken a promise or two and then blamed someone else. Karen runs over to Hannie to tell her to make a New Year’s resolution and I’d have just been like, “Whatever,” because arguing with Karen or telling her you don’t care is way too headache inducing and time consuming. I’m sure that whenever Karen has a new scheme Nancy and Hannie go along with it because they don’t want to risk Karen’s tantrums. Hannie resolves to stop biting her nails. I used to do that. Can’t remember how I kicked the habit, though.
Chapter 6
Karen decides to make a whole list of resolutions. I kind of get it. It’s the new year and it seems full of possibilities and maybe it’s the year you’ll actually finish something you’ve been working on for a while and it’ll be the start of a new and improved you. At least that’s how it is for me. Now I don’t really care too much. What’s on my mind for the new year is how many books are coming out? That’s the important question. These are Karen’s resolutions.
She won’t eat sweets. I’d have broken that resolution after five minutes. There is no way in hell I’m giving up sweets cold turkey. I might be persuaded to cut back on the amount of sweets I consume, but giving them up entirely-hell no.
She will be more helpful with Emily.
She won’t stay up past her bedtime, even to read. It’s perfectly acceptable to stay up past your bedtime if your book is at a really exciting party.
She’ll browbeat Ricky Torres into asking her to marry him. Run, Ricky, run!
She will not make any spelling mistakes. Yeah, that’s not going to happen. Everyone makes spelling mistakes. I’m twenty three and I make spelling mistakes. One time I forgot how to spell of. It’d be better if you said that you’d work harder on your spelling.
She won’t pester Boo Boo. Good. I’m shocked the cat hasn’t scratched you yet or said, “Fuck this family, I’m out,” and ran away. I know I would have. Also, hasn’t anyone in the family told her to leave Boo Boo alone. Okay, maybe that wouldn’t have helped because Karen doesn’t listen and the family doesn’t help matters because they end punishments early or don’t punish her at all.
She’ll share her toys with Andrew and do something nice for someone each day. She’ll also stop bothering Morbidda Destiny. I give her five seconds before she starts screaming that the witch is leaving her house to go steal and cook children. If she did that to Karen, I’d have thrown her a damn parade. I’m kind of amused that Karen wants to make a tenth resolution so she can have a nice round number, because I’m like that too. For a moment I wondered if I should feel ashamed that I have something in common with Karen, and then I decided not to feel bad. Karen is eager to share her resolutions so people can tell her how awesome she is.
Chapter 7
Andrew is still worried about the year ending. I guess he thinks the world is going to end like it was supposed to in 2012. The worst thing that happened to me that day was that I woke up early because the sun was in my eye and I couldn’t get back to sleep. I’m not being sarcastic. I lost four hours of goddamn sleep. They all go to the living room to share their resolutions. Nannie wants to work on getting her hip better, Watson wants to lose ten pounds, Sam wants to stop burping at the table, Charlie won’t talk on the phone while he’s doing homework, Kristy will not talk about baseball on the phone with Bart, Elizabeth will finish things she started, Andrew will floss every day (good luck with that. I always resolve to floss because the dentist bugs me about it every time I go and then I only floss a week before the visit) David Michael resolves to practice hitting and pitching. Karen wants to make Emily have a New Years resolution and Watson is like, “She’s two. She doesn’t know what a resolution is.” But Watson lets Karen make resolutions for the cat and dog because I’m sure they’ll realize they aren’t allowed to scratch people (Boo Boo) or have an accident in the house(Shannon). I’m not sure if animals know what a New Year’s resolution is.
Chapter 8
Karen realizes it’ll be harder than she thought to keep her New Year’s resolutions when she finds herself reaching for candy and realizing that she stayed up past her bedtime. At that point I’d have been like, “Fuck it.” That’s what usually happens to me. I get all excited because of a New Year and make all these resolutions, and then I don’t stick to any of them. Now I’m just like, “There are things I’d like to improve, but I won’t stress out about them.” I’m also kind of hopeful that I’ll find a job other than a part time job at the mall this year.
Chapter 9
Karen sleeps late the next day. She sleep until eleven o clock. Amateur. Eleven is when I wake up to pee and go back to bed. Unless I have to, I don’t get up before one in the afternoon. Today I slept until almost three, but I was so tired and my bed was so comfortable. I think I also slept in because I’m getting over the cold. Now I just have a persistent cough. Karen makes her bed and decides that it counts as doing something nice for someone because Watson and Elizabeth have to remind her and they get cross about it. Does doing a chore you’re supposed to do really count?
Karen goes to the kitchen and finds everyone is eating brunch. She doesn’t know what brunch is. Ha! I told you that there’d be something you didn’t know that was common knowledge to someone else. Sam burps at the table and Karen freaks out like he just dropped a turd. She starts yelling about how Sam broke his resolution and he didn’t even keep it for a day. I wonder if it would have done any good to tell Karen that lots of people don’t keep their new years resolutions, but it probably would have made her more determined to keep hers and make sure the rest of her family did as well.
Sam says sorry, but the way it’s written, I’m sure he’s just rolling his eyes. He’s fifteen. I wouldn’t give a shit if a little seven year old was freaking out that I burped. Sam says he meant he’d stop burping on purpose, but this burp just slipped out. Yeah, that can happen. But Karen doesn’t care. Sam is on her shit list and she doesn’t talk to him for the rest of the meal. I’d have been dancing a little jig. If I’d known the way to get Karen to leave me alone was to break a resolution, I’d have broken one every hour. Karen is still mad because apparently New Year’s resolutions are really serious to her. No idea why. She decides to start her own burn book and writes down that Sam burped loudly at the table. As she’s writing this, she chews gum. She freaks out because she broke a resolution, but the gum is sugarless so she’s safe. But no one else is. Karen is going to spy on everyone to make sure they’re keeping their resolutions. First she spies on Mrs. Porter now she spies on her family. I think the kid needs a hobby. I’m trembling in fear at the thought of a little seven year old spying on me. I’d be like, “Whatever,” and put my headphones in so I don’t have to listen to her little tantrum. Or I’d be laughing my ass off.
Chapter 10
Bart calls to ask Kristy about softball. Karen overhears and runs to accuse her of breaking her resolution. Kristy looks annoyed. I’m pretty sure that’s everyone’s default expression when they’re near Karen. Kristy is like, “Bart called to ask something. I just meant I wouldn’t talk about baseball all the time with him.” Karen apologizes but Kristy still looks annoyed. Kristy is so different in this series. In the BSC verse there’s no way she’d have been annoyed with Karen. She’d have probably recruited Karen to spy on some of the sitting jobs so that she can make sure no one is doing anything she doesn’t approve of (like watching TV or playing quietly). Karen writes down that Kristy spoke on the phone about softball to Bart and why does she give a shit? What difference does it make? I’d say that Karen is training for her career as a prison snitch, but there’s no way in hell that she’d go to prison because Watson would either bribe the judge or it’d be found that since she’d never been punished for anything, she honestly had no idea that what she was doing was wrong. Karen goes over to complain to Hannie. Quick question-do most seven year olds take new years resolutions this seriously? I’m sure some of them would have forgotten by now. Karen goes to Hannie’s house and sees her biting her nails. Karen yells at Hannie for breaking her resolution and Hannie is like, “Whatever.” Karen runs home to snitch on Hannie.
Chapter 11
Karen volunteers to put Emily to bed for Watson and Elizabeth. I’m shocked they don’t have Kristy doing it. There’s a misprint in my e book that said Emily sued to have a crib, but now she has a bed. Given that Watson and Elizabeth were basically like, “We’re adopting a kid,” the day before she arrived, I’m imagining that they didn’t bother getting a crib until the very last minute and Emily sued them. Watson and Elizabeth tell Karen to put a diaper on Emily. Karen reads Emily a story and Emily wets the bed. Karen calls for Kristy to help her, but Kristy is like, “I’m busy and weren’t you supposed to be more helpful with Emily?” So Karen has to change the sheets and take them down to the laundry room and put Emily to bed. I’m pretty sure that Mallory has had to do something like that a bunch of times. Karen changes her resolution to say that she’ll be more helpful with Emily except when she wets the bed. Yeah, I’d have skipped out on diaper duty as well.
Chapter 12
Karen is going back to school. Karen likes school because her teacher lets her get away with everything. Didn’t Karen want a tenth resolution? Here’s one-why don’t you resolve to use your indoor voice? Or raise or hand? You’ve only been told to do so every fucking book. I’m shocked that wasn’t a resolution. I also think she should make a resolution to stop talking about Natalie’s droopy socks. Karen asks Ricky to ask her to marry him and he says yes, but he isn’t really paying any attention to Karen. Nancy resolved to not pass notes to Hannie during class. Hannie bites her nails and Karen gets annoyed again. Hannie doesn’t seem to give a shit. I know I wouldn’t. Karen writes that Hannie bit her nails in the notebook. Later on she realizes that Ricky hasn’t asked her to marry him. Ricky says he didn’t say when he’d ask, just that he would, and he has a point. You should always specify when you want something done. Otherwise the person could have you waiting for ever saying, “You didn’t say when you wanted this done! I said I’d get it done- I didn’t say when!”
Chapter 13
It’s a good thing Karen didn’t resolve not to call out in class without raising her hand because guess what? Karen calls out in class. What a fucking shock. I wonder what bullshit excuse she’d have made. I remember I gave up picking my nose for Lent and I made up a whole bunch of bullshit excuses like it’s okay if I just put my finger in my nose or if I use a tissue but I was still technically breaking my Lent promise. Karen sees Hannie and Nancy passing a note and she’s MAD. Seriously, she writes I…WAS…MAD, like that. Yes, tremble in fear at the wrath of a seven year old. Seriously, what the fuck is Karen going to do? Remove Hannie’s fingernails so she won’t ever bite her nails again? All she’s going to do is scold them and then write in in her snitch book.
Karen and Andrew are back at the Little House. Lisa tells Andrew it’s time to get ready for bed and Karen goes to spy on Andrew to make sure he flosses. He doesn’t, so Karen writes that down. Here’s a thought. Maybe Andrew forgot. It is possible for people to forget about things. There are times I promise not to say anything snide and then I slip. I also promise to floss or start studying for my exams earlier and I forget. Maybe Karen could remind Andrew that he resolved to floss, but I think Karen gets off on catching people breaking their resolutions. It probably makes her feel important.
Karen chews gum and it’s not sugarless, which means that she’s broken her new year’s resolution for real. Karen changes her resolution to I must not eat candy because it’s fine for her to change her resolution so that she doesn’t break it, but god forbid Sam and Kristy try to specify what they meant when they made resolutions. Karen also has trouble falling asleep, so she changes her resolution again. So it’s quite fine for Karen to change her resolutions because she’s a hypocrite.
Chapter 14
It’s January 11TH. I’m not sure about the rest of you guys, but I’d have forgotten about my resolutions by now unless it was something really urgent. Not Karen. She’s still spying on people. Doesn’t this girl have a life? Why is she so obsessed with whether or not people are keeping their resolutions? Why does she give a shit? How does this affect her? It’d be one thing if they said, “I’ll take Karen places more often,” but they didn’t. How is it Karen’s concern if Kristy talks about softball with Bart or if Hannie bites her nails? No one in the little house is keeping their resolutions because they probably forgot. Most people I know forget about their resolutions after a while.
Karen goes to the big house to see how they’re doing with keeping their resolutions. She spies on Nannie. Elizabeth is encouraging her to do one more exercise. Nannie is panting and says that she can’t which prompts Karen to write that Nannie isn’t working her hardest. Yes, I’m sure Karen would be able to tell that her grandmother is slacking off based on an overheard conversation. I’m pretty sure Nannie knows her limits better than Karen does.
Charlie talks on the phone and David Michael didn’t practice his hitting and pitching because it was raining. Karen is upset. Karen spies on Watson and this is really funny because of how dramatic she is. She writes WHAT DO YOU THINK I SAW? And writes that Watson cut himself a slice of cake. She’s acting like this is a huge dirty act. Maybe she’s turning into Dawn. Karen writes in all caps that Watson ate a slice of cake and he’s supposed to be on a diet. How is he going to lose ten pounds now? I guess she’s upset because she doesn’t want a fat father.
Shannon broke the resolution Karen gave her because she had an accident in the house. No shit. I don’t think dogs understand what a New Year’s resolution is. Wouldn’t you have to house train the dog? Is a dog really capable of saying, “This year I won’t have any accidents in the house?” I doubt it.
Chapter 15
People are still breaking their resolutions. Something must be done. Karen waits until dinner before busting out her snitch book and announcing that everyone has broken their resolutions. Sam says he forgot about them but Karen didn’t. Andrew cries when Karen rats him out and Kristy tries to comfort him by saying no one cares that he didn’t keep his resolution. Karen says that she cares, but no one cares what you think, Karen, so shut up. Kristy ignores Karen. David Michael calls Karen a tattle tale. I don’t know about you guys, but back in my day tattle tale was the greatest insult to call a kid. David Michael keeps taunting Karen and Watson raises his voice which causes Emily Michelle to cry.
Karen whines that it’s not fair for Emily not to have to make a resolution and Nannie is like, “She’s being toilet trained and learning English. She’s learning important things. Besides, she doesn’t understand what a New Year’s resolution is. Watson says that Karen hurt a lot of feelings. Andrew looks hurt and Nannie looks hurt as well. Karen feels slightly bad, but she dismisses it because Nannie resolved to work extra hard and Karen thinks she didn’t. How would Karen know how hard Nannie’s been working? I think Karen’s being really judgmental. No one talks to Karen that night. Karen gets all snotty because she’s keeping her New Year’s resolutions, but no one else is. Yeah, you already broke two resolutions and tried to cover your ass by rewording them. Nice try.
Chapter 16
Watson decides to do a half assed bit of parenting and tries to lecture Karen about spying people. Given that Watson doesn’t do shit when Karen spies on Mrs. Porter, I’m not surprised Karen isn’t taking Watson seriously. Watson tells Karen he doesn’t like her spying. He also tells her that some people don’t always keep New Years resolutions and she shouldn’t take them so seriously. He also thinks that New Year’s resolutions aren’t a contest. Karen still gets uppity because she kept her New Year’s resolutions so she’s better than everybody because they didn’t keep theirs. Lisa comes over and Watson asks to talk to her. Karen goes to spy because I guess she thinks she’s entitled to know what everyone is doing. I love how Watson just told her he doesn’t like her spying, but she still does it. I also love how Karen admits she’s going to spy on people still. It’s a really good thing that Karen didn’t resolve to break any of her bad habits like spying or calling out because she wouldn’t have lasted five seconds.
Chapter 17
Karen always feels like someone is watching her and she has no privacy. Hannie and Nancy are mad because David Michael told them what she did and now everyone thinks they can’t keep promises. Ricky still hasn’t asked Karen to marry him. He says he’ll do it when he likes her better. He says Karen isn’t the boss of the world and she doesn’t control everyone. Go, Ricky! High five!
Chapter 18
Lisa and Seth want to talk to Karen and Andrew. It turns out they’ve been spying on Karen and keeping track of when she broke her resolutions so she’d know how it feels. Karen is embarrassed. Lisa asks if she likes being spied on and being tattled on. Karen says that she doesn’t. Lisa also says that she found Karen’s list and she knows that she changed the resolutions and how that wasn’t fair. I wonder what Karen’s reaction would be if there was a student in class who called out before she did or called out when Karen was talking. I’d love to see Karen’s reaction at being interrupted. Karen cries and asks if Lisa is mad at her. Lisa says she isn’t, she’s mad at what Karen did. But she forgives Karen.
Chapter 19
Karen apologizes to Andrew and then calls the Big House to apologize. They forgive her. The end.
Chapter 20
Karen apologizes to Hannie and Nancy. She shows them all the good things she wrote about them in the notebook. Ricky asks Karen to marry him. The end. The last few chapters were very anti climatic. Happy New Year. I hope you all had a good 2015 and have a great 2016!