Bucket Lists and Dead Bodies

I keep hearing about people and their BUCKET LIST. Isn’t that whole concept a bit on the morbid side – I mean, listing things you want to do before you die! It’s great to have goals and dreams…but who, except my friend Dixie, is actually going to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro when they are in their fifties? So Dixie totally rocks, but the rest of us need to scale back our bucket lists.

Here is a more realistic bucket list for what I would like to do before I die.

1. Read all the Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings and Chronicles of Narnia…again.
2. Go to Costco and spend less than $100.
3. Get all the kids raised and permanently out of the house.
4. Retain the ol’ marbles to the bitter end.
5. Spend the night in Panguitch (just because that has to be the coolest name of a town, ever).
6. Avoid Depends at all costs.
7. Live long enough to see my kids all happily wed.
8. Keep my eyesight.
9. Finally master my favorite Chopin etude.
10. After the cat dies, buy a front room couch that I actually like.

Yup, not too glamorous. But my bucket list is doable, except maybe the Costco part. And I have kids who could successfully argue that my marbles are already a bit depleted, but whatever.

Now if I wanted to spice the list up a bit I would add:



11. Try the chili rellenos in every Mexican restaurant along the Wasatch front just to find out whose are best.

12. Find a dead body.


I just about got the chance to fulfill #12 last Friday night. Now you have to know that I live in family-oriented-safe-central. People wave, even if they don’t know you, everyone is out walking on miles of trails, kids ride scooters and run around until way after dark and a suspicious vehicle would be sighted within seconds by 25 people.

So imagine my distress when I was walking, all by myself, along a trail and heard a bunch of guys beating the ‘you know what’ out of some poor fellow. I didn’t have my cell phone to call 911 but it was intense and awful to hear the poor guy getting killed. I wasn’t about to start screaming bloody murder and run right into the fray so I dropped to my hands and knees and began crawling around the corner, in the weeds mind you, so I could identify the thugs. But no one was there. I could still hear them and they even turned on a boom box with intense music (to cover the sound?). And then I carefully lifted my head out of the grasses and saw…an outdoor movie screen with about 200 people sitting on blankets, enjoying FlyBoys.

Yup, I just about ran, screaming for the nearest phone to call 911 --- for a movie. Thorns, thistles, dirt and assorted bugs clung to my pants and hands, but I stood and casually sauntered past the group as if I always crawled up the hill. Exercise is tough, after all.

So I have a new item for my bucket list.

13. Avoid dying of embarrassment. Pick a better way to go.