My bucket list
Judy Conlin
I have been thinking about my bucket list of late.
You know -a list of things you’d like to do before you’re dead. I searched high and low throughout this house, and I couldn’t find one. As I went through every desk and cupboard, Nurse Judy, my know-it-all alter ego comes up and asks, “Whatcha looking for?”
“My bucket list,” I say exasperatedly.
“What’s that?” she asks. I tell her and she gives me a disgusted look. “I bet you never made one out,” she says. “It’s just like you to put things off until the last minute.”
“Now you wait a minute,” I say. “I am still a vital functioning human being. I am still holding down at least 3 small jobs, taking care of my cats, and managing my household. Why would I have been thinking about a bucket list? I am still in my prime.”
Nurse Judy guffaws. “In your prime!” she exclaims. “The expiration date for your prime has come and gone>”
“Old age is just a number,” I tell her.
“If the digits in your age are closer to 3 digits than 2 digits, you are old,” she says.
“You’re only as old as you feel,” I say , throwing in another cliché.
“When you crawl out of bed in the morning moaning and groaning about your many aches and pains, is that the behavior of a young person? If you don’t think you’re old, why are you looking for a nonexistent bucket list?”
“I want to be prepared for when I am old,” I say defiantly.
“When do you think that will be?” she asks.
I think about this. I’m not sure what to say, I don’t want to admit that I might be getting a little long in the tooth, but time does march on, and I want to have a little fun in the time I still have. How can I get this across to someone as dense as my alter ego? After a long pause, I come up with an idea.
“Remember that time you were going to a cast party for a play that I had been in and you were taking all the credit for?”
|“What does that have to do with anything?” she asks’
“You put on your prettiest silk blouse and your long black velvet skirt.”
“So what?” she asks.
“You had trouble buttoning the skirt.”
“So what?”
“You weren’t fat yet, but you knew you might be getting there so you immediately began eating nothing but salads. This was very hard on me, but I didn’t stop you.”
“What does any of that have to do with your bucket list?”
“Everything,” I say. “I don’t believe I’m old yet, but I’m going to have as much fun as I can before I get there.”
She gives me her Nurse Judy stare. “Believe me,” she says. “You’re there already. You’re old right now, Honey, and when you start kicking up your heels, checking off things on a bucket list, It will probably cause you to kick the bucket a little sooner than expected”
I try to ignore her. She doesn’t know what she’s talking about, Still, I do quit looking for that list. Why tempt fate?
More later,Judy
www.nursewjudyinfo.com
