7. Bucket or Fuck It

Author’s Notes: If I’m keeping it 100% here, it’s not always easy to come up with stuff to write about, even with the added structure of each month having a theme. “Okay the theme is ‘death,’ now what?” The idea behind this post was given to me as a recommendation. My “Plan Your Own Funeral” post was also a reader recommendation. If you have any ideas you’d like to request, send them my way. No guarantee I’ll do them, but I love fresh ideas and I do love writing for people.

Topic Request: Bucket Lists

I’ve actually had a couple people recommend doing my “Bucket List” as a post. I’m not someone who actively keeps a bucket list written down somewhere and sometimes find that very idea somewhat hammy and also a little cumbersome. I like to live in the moment and even live a little impulsively if the situation allows it. Yeah it’s good to have longterm goals, travel plans, and “wouldn’t it be fun if” ruminations, but the last thing I want to attach to my life is yet another to-do list.

All that being said, in the spirit of what bucket lists are intended for (going and doing) and with that blinking cursor on a blank screen starting to silently mock me, I think it could be fun to go through some popular Bucket List items and see if it’s something I’d like to do (Bucket) or something I could do without (Fuck it).

Skydiving: It’s literally the first thing Tim McGraw sings about in that song that you couldn’t escape in 2004. I get the appeal of skydiving on every level and think it would be tremendously fun to test Newtonian physics at 10,000 feet. Spoiler alert: Newton = still right.
Verdict: BUCKET. I totally get it. If there’s ever a reason to impersonate a bird without wings, why not as you face your imminent demise?

Bungee Jumping: I’m sure bungee jumping is fun, especially if done off a tall bridge over a river, but this has always seemed like such a cheap high to me, especially as a bucket list item. If skydiving is pure heroin, bungee jumping is like huffing cheap spraypaint out of a brown paper bag. Sure, it’ll do the trick, but there are so much better ways to get that “I’m about to die” buzz. Ever driven on Interstate 610 through Houston at rush hour? Much better adrenaline high.
Verdict: FUCK IT. The only thing this 45 year old sees happening with bungee jumping is back pain.

Run a marathon: I’ve run a couple of marathons. CORRECTION: I’ve run a part of two different marathons, but probably ended up walking the majority of both. As my sister reminds me, that counts. …but does it, though? Does it really count? I have the medals in my closet, so who am I to argue, but my brain knows the “stolen valor” truth.
Verdict: BUCKET, especially if you’re one of those weirdo goal oriented people like my sister.

Swim with dolphins: I’m extremely leery of any bucket list item that involves animals. Another list I saw had “ride an elephant” on it. How about we just leave the animals be. Enjoy them from a distance. Some freaking seals swam up onto a beach I was sitting on while in Hawaii and just started napping right there in front of me. Guess what? It was fun just to watch them from afar. We don’t need to fully immerse ourselves into their habitats.
Verdict: FUCK IT. When it comes to animal stuff, especially “riding an elephant,” I’m going to point at you right in the face and quote Captain America from the first Avengers movie, “Son, just don’t.”

See the Great Barrier Reef: Sorry to get all serious with both the animals one and this one here, but how about we don’t? I get it. I really, really get it. I’ve been snorkeling in Okinawa, Japan, which has some of the most beautiful snorkeling in the entire world. I get the appeal of wanting to snorkel or scuba dive the Great Barrier Reef. But … can we not? The Great Barrier Reef is dying. More specifically, global climate change is kiling the Great Barrier Reef. So unless you already live in Australia or Papua New Guinea or can sail to one of those places in a sailboat, how about we let the GBR be.
Verdict: FUCK IT.

Get a Tattoo: This one always makes me laugh. What year is this? Feels like every list that has “get a tattoo” on it was made before 2005. Everyone has tattoo these days. I have several. They’re easy to get, not altogether all that expensive, and don’t carry the same social stigma they once did.
Verdict: BUCKET! Put it on your bucket list but you don’t need to take it that far. Get get yourself a god damned tattoo.

Go Skinny Dipping: Look, if you’ve never felt the thrill of pool water, lake water, river water, ocean water, water sewage treatment plant spillwater, etc. on your nether regions, you’ve never really lived. That’s just a fact. Next time you’re at a public pool, you must try it. To Hell with the lifeguards and the families recoiling in horror. They’re the ones who are stuck in the system, mannnnnn.
Verdict: BUCKET! Let your gloriously saggy balls and your beautiful titties be free!

You know what? Writing all of this has kind of won me over. I’m going to abruptly change course and do an actual Bucket List of stuff I’d like to do before I die, which I hope isn’t for many, many decades. …maybe even many, many centuries. *hisses at you like a Vampire*

1. Learn to surf. I mean… it just looks like it’d be such an incredible feeling to ride a wave or two or three-hundred.
2. Climb a 14,000ft mountain. I’ve climbed a 10,000 foot one already. Let’s throw 4,000 more feet on to that.
3. Ride on a luxury train through the Canadian Rockies. I mean… damn.
4. Make at least 50% of my meals throughout the week vegetarian. I do this sometimes already but need to give our animal friends a break more regularly.
5. Attend an Olympics. It’s going to be in Los Angeles soon. Gonna make this happen.
6. On a motorcycle, ride on the same path my dad and I took from Texas to Colorado, and then northward to Canada, westward through Washington, Oregon, Northern California, and then back through Arizona and New Mexico.
7. Train like a boxer for a year. I don’t care to spar, but I love how boxers train.
8. Continue to read more. Not always easy for my ADHD brain but always worth it.
9. Visit a location in the US where the night sky is entirely dark so I can take in the full scope of the wonderfully starry night sky.
10. Be present in the moment.

Okay that wasn’t so bad and that’s not an awful list, if I do say so myself. But if all else fails, I can go skyyyyydiving, go Rocky Mountain climbing, spend two point seven seconds on a bull named Fu Man Chuuuuuu… damn you, Tim McGraw. DAMN YOU TO HELLLLLLLLL!