You are probably aware of the movie “Bucket List” directed and produced by Malibu’s own Rob Reiner. Released in 2007, the film is about two men played by Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman who end up in the same hospital room. They prepare a list of things they want to do before they kick the bucket, thus giving us the name of the movie.
I must be morally deficient, but I have no intention of making a bucket list. For one thing, I have no intention of kicking the bucket. When I go, I would prefer a far less aggressive term to describe my demise, and since I am in the real estate business, perhaps “bought the farm” would be more appropriate.
More important, I find the things people put on their bucket list disturbing. In the movie the two characters decide to jump out of an airplane. What would possess any sane human being to jump out of a plane is beyond my comprehension. Personally, I would rather kick the bucket, which is something that would happen if I jumped out of a plane.
Imagine for a moment that you are on the edge of extinction, you have little time to do the one thing you have always wanted to do but never quite got around to doing, and you sign up to jump out of a plane.
I was a bit curious as to what people like to do before they croak (sounds like a frog), and so I checked in with my good friends at Google. I am not making this up, but some popular choices are “abseil down a waterfall” (I have no idea what abseil is or is not, but I don’t want any part of it), get a tattoo (which will prevent you from being buried in a Jewish cemetery), hold a shark (people who want to do this are certifiably insane), and jump off a cliff (I would rather hold a shark).
If you think I have exhausted the crazy things people want to do before they expire, you are dead wrong. Try the following on for size: “eat fire,” “swim with sharks” (what is this fetish with sharks?), “swim with stingrays” (I guess that beats swimming with sharks), and “wrapping a snake around one’s throat” (something I have wanted to do my entire life).
The list of idiocy is endless. I am not the adventurous sort, so if somebody were to tell me my days were short (I do not mean winter), then I would like to smoke a stogie, eat some peanut M&M’s, drink a margarita with salt, and take a nap. That is my preferred degree of danger.