It's probably safe to assume that everybody's bucket list is different. For example, if you don't have much imagination, you might put, "Learn How to Fold Laundry" on your list. If you're more adventurous, you might write, "Have an Affair with Wife's Best Friend." If you're really daring you might enter, "Learn How to Fold Laundry While on Caribbean Cruise with Wife's Best Friend." This might best be followed by, "Don't Get Caught by Wife."
On the other hand, it's probably not a good idea to be so daring as to tempt fate. If your bucket list contains things like "Climb Mount Everest" or "Swim across English Channel" or "Hit Self on Head Repeatedly with Croquet Mallet," the chances are pretty good that one of the activities on your bucket list will prematurely kill you, which would obviously defeat the purpose, particularly if one of your insanely dangerous items is at the top of the list.
That said, after much prodding from my mortician, I've finally decided to put together my bucket list. I probably should have written it years ago since I'm beyond middle age now and a little decrepit, but better late than never. The following 25 items are things I've always wanted to do before I meet my Maker:
1. Eat at a three-star Michelin restaurant and ask about their tire selection.
2. Play shortstop for the Yankees from first base.
3. Give my wife a set of power tools for our thirtieth wedding anniversary and not end up sleeping on the couch.
4. Mix the perfect martini in a tube sock while explaining quantum physics to Kim Kardashian.
5. Get hired to teach a course in atheism at Oral Roberts University.
6. Stun the nation by getting a cable guy to show up at my house on time.
7. Win a Hemingway look-alike contest without growing a beard.
8. Write a six volume Pulitzer Prize-winning history of the Civil War but leave out the battles.
9. Get invited to a formal dinner at the White House and ask for a bib.
10. Win a gold medal for an Olympic swimming event wearing floaties.
11. Deposit a million dollars in my Bank of America checking account and convince them to waive the ATM fee.
12. Co-write an American History textbook with Sarah Palin without vomiting.
13. Agree to go lingerie shopping with Scarlett Johansson and then stand her up.
14. Write a sitcom starring Charlie Sheen and the Dalai Lama.
15. Watch an episode of Desperate Housewives on a sixty-inch HDTV with an Amish family.
16. Get the Queen of England to sit in a bean bag chair.
17. Go whale-watching in Switzerland.
18. Convince the Pope to do a lounge act in Las Vegas.
19. Make a fortune selling beachfront timeshares in the Arctic.
20. Go trick-or-treating with Paul Wolfowitz.
21. Order foie gras at a fine Parisian restaurant and ask for ketchup.
22. Take a road trip with Keith Olbermann and Rush Limbaugh.
23. Check all of Shakespeare's original manuscripts for typos.
24. Stowaway on a rowboat.
25. Find a cemetery that gets WiFi.
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You'd be unforgivably foolish if did this one. You have my blessing on the others and a "good luck to you" on number 12.
If completing it is the only way you can die then you should be the last man standing when the planet grinds to a halt. And it all looked so possible until you put Kim and physics in the same sentence.