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A bucket list is simply a list of things you want to do before you die or "kick the bucket."
My bucket list is not as exciting as the one Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman compiled. Those who know me best often marvel at my singular lack of coordination. They understand, above all, why difficult acrobatic stunts are not for me. Climbing, leaping and other feats that require physical exertion are noticeably absent from my list. I aspire to nothing more athletic than to be able to do the Electric Slide without getting my feet tangled. Former Eagles player Hollis Thomas once referred to me as a "girly man" after just 20 minutes in my company. What follows is a girly man’s bucket list. I make no apologies for it:
1. With apologies to my wife, I would like to get a date for New Year’s who shares my somber mood when the clock strikes 12. I figure, this way, when somebody blows a horn in my ear and shrieks, "Happy New Year," both my date and I can say, "F-You."
2. I would like to go on vacation without having anyone from US Air get within 50 feet of my luggage. Also, I would like not to have to take my shoes off when checking in. In return, I will assure anyone detonating a suicide bomb is way beyond my expertise.
3. I would like to live long enough to see a president who is not demonstrably more incompetent than I. I don’t want to have a beer with the next president or even hack some brush.
4. I would like to live long enough to see Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman really act again instead of impersonating Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau in one of those patronizing senior buddy movies.
5. I would like to be able to read a "How To Do It" book and really know how to do it. At the present time, I don’t know how to do much of anything.
6. I don’t need to learn how to swim, I just want to be respected when I squat in the shallow end of the pool.
7. I want to meet one Republican who doesn’t think what we need is another tax cut for people making more than $500,000 a year. I realize it might be easier for me to aspire to scale Mount Everest.
8. I would like to be able to eat Alaskan king crab legs without cutting myself. I can’t afford the loss of blood.
9. I would like to go through a day in our beloved South Philadelphia without someone thinking that "youse" is the plural of "you." If you also could throw in a day when everyone legally parks, I could die happy and I don’t even own a car.
10. I would like to run into someone from Packer Park who says, "I know I live in a great neighborhood, but so do you."
11. I would like to be able to do simple math again without the aid of a calculator.
12. I would like my dog to relieve himself before the two-minute warning in a football game.
13. I would like to, just once, beat my 8-year-old grandson in Monopoly (does that make me a bad person?).
14. I would like to travel back in time and make certain the song "Funky Town" is never written. Also, if I have time, I would wipe out "It’s Raining Men."
15. I would like to live long enough to see the New England Patriots lose a game.
