The Bucket List

As I slide headlong down the greased incline leading to the grave, it occurs to me that there are still a few things I have not done yet that I would like to do.  The fashionable thing to do nowadays is to compile  these things into a list and put them in a bucket like they did in the movie "the Bucket List" starring Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson. In that movie, which I have not yet seen, the two protagonists, T-Bone and Prickly Pete, played respectively by Freeman and Nicholson, are facing impending death by some type of disease or two and go off to accomplish various things they always wanted to do, like sky diving and cow tipping and such.  From what I understand, hilarious consequences follow each adventure our heroes undertake, culminating in the Grim Reaper grabbing these guys by the collar and dragging them to hell. Now I don't know whether anything I've just written about the movie is true or not, but it has inspired me to compile a list of some of things I'd like to do before this Reaper character kicks down my door and chops my head off with his blade thingy.  It's not that I am expecting to go to my own funeral any time soon, but it would be nice to do a few things that I'll be able to look back on with satisfaction as my head rolls across my living room floor. 

Here, then is a partial list of things I'd like to do before I kick the whatchamacallit:

• Get the gum out of my couch cushions
• Find a restaurant that serves good fried chicken (haven't come close yet, despair of ever finding one)
• Exercise
• Get a green light at the intersection of Cove and Lake Avenues (it has to happen some time.  It has to)
• Go a full month without having some part of my car malfunction
• Put away every bit of the last batch of laundry before I start the next batch
• Pay my bills on time
• See a Cleveland sports team win a championship (yeah, right)
• Vote for somebody who actually wins an election
• Play a single song on any musical instrument all the way through
• Go to the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Canada.  (it's not that far away)
• Learn to eat with utensils
• Paint my garage
• Find all my missing socks
• Memorize my cell phone number
• Match just one number on a lottery ticket
• Play tennis with Bigfoot (we could sit down court side afterwards and drink lemonades)
• Ski down Mt. Rushmore
• Run with the cows in Pamplona (less exhilarating than with bulls, but much less dangerous.  Plus, there is a milk break at the halfway point)
• Go to the Guiness brewery in Dublin
• Remember the lyrics to a song, any song
• Sing the song in tune
• Learn to make a good cup of coffee
• Find a cure for stupidity (but not my own)
• Do a dance in a stage musical without looking like I want to kill myself
• Find a beautiful rich woman with an impaired short-term memory
• Rearrange the weeds in my yard
• Go "russian roulette" bungee jumping (where they sever the bungee of one random jumper every day)

This list, of course, is not exhaustive, even if it is exhausting.  If I think of anything else to throw in the bucket, you will be the first to know.