It takes courage to compile a bucket list you honestly intend to accomplish. My cousin Dolores fulfilled her dream by skydiving on her 80th birthday. I’ve jumped out of planes many times, but I’ve always waited until they landed, so I’m sure I was more nervous watching her video than she was while plummeting to earth with only a few yards of nylon preventing a free-fall landing at 300 miles per hour. (You can check the math for mph after falling 3,000 ft) . Dolores’ helmet would have been no help.. However, the odds for a safe tandem skydive are excellent, about 500,000 to one. Statiscally, you should be more frightened getting into your car than buckling on a chute.
There are bucket list choices that some would call foolhardy. A friend told me he hoped to swim the Hudson River before he died. I heard later he planned to accomplish this and I called to congratulate and encourage him. His wife answered the phone. “He’s in the river now and I’m worried sick,” she said.
“It’s only about a mile across to Manhattan from Jersey and he’s a good swimmer,” I said. “He’ll be landing in the Big Apple in no time.”
“He’s not swimming across,” she said. “He’s swimming lengthwise.”
The last I heard he’d reached Poughkeepsie and was going strong just 235 miles from the Hudson’s source in the Adirondacks. Fortunately, he’s accompanied by another bucket lister who wants to row his boat to Glens Falls.”
I don’t have a bucket list even though I’m getting pretty close to the bucket. I’m hoping they’ll let me fulfill a post-bucket list, because I’d need supernatural help. A certain company has afflicted me for years with neglect and overcharges. I’ll call the outfit “McNasty Enterprises LLC” and won’t bore you with details of their misbehavior. If I get to heaven I’d like to be granted some get-even powers. There would be no physical harm involved, just a little mischief.
For instance if I can spiritually hack McNasty’s computers I would temporarily replace their accounts receivable files with Rachael Ray recipes and clips of Marx Brothers movies. I’d also want to levitate the billing department manager whenever he’s inventing fictitious fees or browbeating a customer.
I hope Saint Peter would grant my request. It might convert a few crafty characters and save them some Purgatory time.
Imagine That 