Interview With Baby New Year
by Maggie Van Ostrand
I've always wondered about the gender of the New Year's Eve baby. It's probably male, considering that outfit. No girl baby would go out wearing just a diaper and a chest banner with the year on it, especially not in January when one's nipples react to the cold weather. What kind of resolutions would that baby make, and would they be like everybody else's?
"If I could have anything in the world, I'd want world peace," rhapsodizes every Miss America contestant since the first one back when all the Nielsen viewers lived in caves. Today, we want more personal things, even though our Resolutions may become somewhat elastic as the year trudges on. In fact, we probably all write pretty much the same ones: quit smoking, spend more time with family, quit drinking, blah blah blah. But what about the unusual Resolutions? Who'd know about them? The New Year Baby, that's who. The very same gurgling baby who symbolizes the New Year is definitely the one to ask.
We tracked the baby down as it was preparing for the annual trip to Times Square, and got the following answers.
Q: You're a boy baby, right?
A: See this top hat on my head? Who'd you think I was, Fred Astaire?
Q: Since you mentioned Fred's name, what's yours? We can't keep calling you Baby New Year.
A: Kid Time, that's my moniker.
Q: Do you alternate with another baby from one year to the next?
A: Nope. It's always been me, even before Dick Clark began to drop the ball. As I recall, he was still hosting dance shows, so long ago that The Beatles were known simply as The Beat.
Actually, I've been playing this gig since 600 B.C. Back then I was Greek, but it was the Germans who brought me to America. You think immigration problems are bad now? Sheesh. You should’ve been around then. Even if you could get across the border into the U.S., you could never find a decent hotel room.
Q: Since I assume you're the one to talk with about New Year's Resolutions the same as we talk with Santa about Christmas wishes, what are some unusual ones?
A: Well, there was the one that said, "Take time from schedule to stop and smell the behinds."
Q: What?
A: Yes, you heard right. I was really shocked until I found out that the list it appeared on was Lassie's.
Q: Any other odd Resolutions?
A: How about, "Don't put the Twinkies back on the store shelf after you suck out the filling. Always eat the whole thing."
Q: Who wrote that one?
A: Kirstie Alley
Q: Tsk tsk tsk, that's quite naughty of you to repeat.
A: I haven't revealed the most unusual of all.
Q: Oh please, do tell. Maybe we can sell the information to the National Enquirer.
A: Okay, I can be bought. It's this one: "Get Shorty."
Q: Who wrote that one, John Travolta?
A: Nope. Michael Jackson.
Q: We can't publish that, but thanks anyway, Kid Time, for a most unique interview. We appreciate your turning down Oprah's show in favor of us.
A: It's not that I liked you better than Oprah, it's that her guest list is so long, by the time she gets me out of the green room, I'll be a bent over old man with a beard and that uncool scythe. That's what happens after a year of watching all of you not keeping your Resolutions.
Q: What's your personal 2005 New Year's Resolution, Kid Time?
A: Stop greenhouse gasses. Take a Beano.
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