Have you made a bucket list?
I haven’t. Lists demand thought. Strike-throughs. Check marks.
(Yawn) Sloth — er, contentment — is so much more relaxing.
So is staying in a rut, retort alpha personalities.
Okay, okay. To inspire my grandchildren, I should aspire to higher objectives than counting dust bunnies.
After all, a fascinating world awaits me. Places to go. Things to do. Possibilities swirl through my brain like flocks of starlings. How can I choose a few among thousands of flapping, chirping alternatives?
Finally, I settle on a first step . . . what not to include on my bucket list:
- I will never run for President. I’d spend 90 percent of my term trying to elude the Secret Service. Who wants their President to live in a dumpster? Bad deal for everyone.
- I won’t brush with eggplant-flavored toothpaste.
- I don’t plan to train as a snake milker.
- I’ll never embrace a low-carb diet. Life without spaghetti? Home-baked bread? Surely, you jest.
- Nor am I obsessed with memorizing all 49 Vice Presidents.
- I will never — and no one else had better — line up Metallica to sing “Happy Birthday” to me.
- Many wish to run with the bulls in Spain. Should this mad urge to sprint with bovines overwhelm me, I can always run with cows in Indiana.
- I will never don skinny jeans. You’re welcome.
- I’ve considered visiting England as a for-real bucket-list item. However, I won’t enter the World Worm Charming Championships in Willaston. There, hundreds of participants not only jab with pitchforks, but play ukuleles and clarinets to bring squirmy little friends to the surface. And, no, I am not making this up.
- You will not see me drive in a NASCAR race. Walmart parking lots provide sufficient excitement.
- I will never run a marathon in stilettos.
- I refuse to cultivate Venus flytraps. Plants with teeth give me the willies.
- Nor will I kiss frogs. I like kissing my husband too much. Besides, he’s already a prince.
I will never aspire to:
- Rollerblade down Mount Rainier.
- Chase tornadoes. I also prefer they don’t chase me.
- Join Chocolate Haters of America.
- Finally, though I like eating grits, I’ll never enter the Rolling in the Grits Contest in St. George, South Carolina. There, a contestant weighs, then hops into a kiddie pool filled with 27 cases of grits. The goal: to fill pockets and baggy clothes with the sticky Southern favorite. One champion emerged from the kiddie pool 66 pounds heavier! That alone convinces me it doesn’t belong on my bucket list.
This exercise only cuts my bucket list choices from a gazillion to a billion. But, hey, it’s a beginning.
And (yawn) so relaxing . . .
Your Extraordinary Ordinary: Have you compiled a non-bucket list?