The Ultimate Bucket List
By Bill Domke
1. Make a grand return somewhere. I mean GRAND. At first, only one person will see you and theatrically shout “Look!”, and everybody’s heads will turn and an orchestra will play “Mask of Zorro”-esque chords with castanets going crazy. You’ll be riding some stallion and small children will be cheering and chasing as you ride through the streets. This will probably not happen in Times Square.
2. Harness insane jumping power and balance. Live on the third story of a building and causally walk out with a first date that ideally knows nothing of said jumping prowess and casually laugh about how you “forgot my watch.” Then, you’ll turn and jump up to your kitchen window (but only grab on with your hands — you can’t show them everything the first time) and come back down. The only thing you’ll say is “I have to buy a lot of plaster when people scare me.” Basically, learn how to be Spiderman.
3. Gain the ability to commune with some type of animal. I’m not talking Eliza Thornberry abilities — we all saw how silly she looked getting peer pressured by a llama while climbing Macchu Picchu. We’re aiming for the look and the nod here. For instance, a love interest and you will get lost on a hiking expedition and run into a pack of wolves — but you know these wolves. One look and nod and their whole demeanor changes, and suddenly you’re frolicking in the leaves with a gaggle of wolf pups. In general, I’d put frolic with a gaggle of wolf pups on any to-do list.
4. Casually save a celebrity. I’ve thought this out. Example: Emma Watson is in the U.S. doing some fashion/movie/famous person-related activity, but finds herself in need of help… someone is mugging her, she’s stuck in an elevator and is really hungry, etc. You jump in, help, and leave, acting like you don’t actually care, though in reality you’ll never wash that forearm again.
5. Fly a plane. More accurately, bust into a cockpit right when two pilots suffer unexpected simultaneous heart attacks. Much like Harrison Ford learned to fly on… the… fly… in Air Force One, you will do the same, landing the plane while also resuscitating the pilots (they have wives to go home to, after all).
6. Get ridiculously good at an instrument by your late 60s and audition for a music conservatory as an old nobody that “just wants to learn a hobby.” Outside the audition room, you’ll make light with the nervous high school seniors and joke that there’s no reason to be nervous if you’ve prepared the right way. You’ll go first and play some complex piece that you heard a staff member felt some connection to (probably some old friend that wrote it and died some time ago). The only way to leave a room while others are listening in is to open the door to vivacious applause.
7. While we’re on the subject of aging, retain all your strength in your later years, insane jumping power and balance included. Get mugged, act helpless, and proceed to sprint after your attacker and judo throw him into a wall. When the public crowds around wondering what just happened, you’ll just say “I hate it when people take my raisins.”
8. Make friends with a high-profile filmmaker and have a movie made about your life. It can be completely boring and do terrible at the box office, but who doesn’t want to see scenes of their life on the big screen set to backdrops of orchestral scores by Hans Zimmer?!
9. Have a kid that is dominant in everything. He’s going to win football games on Friday nights, chess tournaments on Saturday mornings, soccer games on Saturday afternoons, and marching band competitions on Saturday nights. He’ll cook on Sundays because he loves to experiment with foreign cuisine. Have a daughter too, but she won’t be around because she is so naturally talented with numbers that the government is using her to write codes for them when it’s not tea time. She’s only 8.
10. Disappear. Remove all traces of yourself from social media, government records, and the planet in general at some point and live as a completely different person, maybe a hobo. There are no elaborate details for this one, being a hobo is pretty boring.