By Abe Villarreal

In 2024, I hope we advance enough as a society to fix age-old problems affecting us all. Like the spit guards over salad bars. Those things never work for me.

I'm into health and wellness and all those things that make us feel like we are safeguarding each other, but spit guards are awkward. I can never reach the food in the back and those are the items I usually always want. The avocadoes are always back there.

The new year will hopefully bring a fix to office HVAC systems. Here we are, about to officially begin winter, and the air is blowing directly over my office desk. Company leaders, or ingenious HVAC operators, try to fool us all by installing a little white box in each office. It has a small side lever you can move up to the heat or move down to the cold, but it never works. Someone else is in control.

I'm expecting that in 2024, there will be a change to how we check out at supermarkets. I'm expecting it, but I'm not sure it will happen. When I go to the little meat market on the main avenue, there's always a nice lady who weighs the meat, and bags everything for me. That's what I need in my life. Someone who bags everything for me.

And then there's credit card machines. At the gas station mini-mart, the guy always tells me to try the chip reader twice before I scan it. He knows I'll end up scanning it because the chip reader functionality is usually not functional. The new year needs someone to figure that out for us, too.

I know many of you are hoping for 2024 to bring a final fix to the low tire light that seems to never come off in your dashboard. Each time I go for a full-service oil change, I get my tires aired-up and the overall-wearing teenager recites the same line, "You're ready, boss. Drive it around a few miles and the light will come off." It never does.

There are several things I hope the new year doesn't change. Things that we should keep doing because it's what keeps us a community. Like people lining up for parades really early. The back of their cars open. Folding chairs lined up for blocks. Moms and dads ready to cheer on the winning youth football leagues.

Or people getting together in parks for special ceremonies. The kind of ceremonies where we name benches for local veterans or dedicate playgrounds to someone who made a difference in your hometown. Those things need to keep happening, and people need to experience them.

In 2024, I hope that more people spend time eating at pancake breakfasts put on by the Kiwanis or Rotary groups. The food is yummy, students are happily filling your coffee cups, and neighbors you haven't seen in a while are always somewhere in the room.

I like to think that the new year will bring new opportunities to be less focused on ourselves and more focused on those around us. The people we see and those that we don't see. Our families and close friends, and new friends who will come our way.

Spit guards and credit card machines are the little things in life that get under our skin. One day, progress will fix those nuances' and then we'll find something else to gripe about.

In 2024, enjoy a pancake breakfast and forget the avocadoes that are too far to reach. It will be a better year if you do.

Abe Villarreal writes about the traditions, people, and culture of America. He can be reached at abevillarreal@hotmail.com.