The Captain's Bucket List

Yours truly, Mayor of the Myrmidons, Oracle of the Unusual, Fabricator of the Fantastic, or, as my mother now calls me, Captain Dumbass, lied. He who writes pretentiously of himself in the third person like some overpaid and ethically challenged CEO fibbed when he wrote that he would never compile a Bucket List. It’s in my psychological make up to fantasize, so I am neurologically compelled to put one together (I believe that is Excuse # 37 for writing my drivel – I can’t help it; just the way I’m made – an excuse, I might add, that’s popular with robots and serial killers).

The items on my bucket list fall into one of three categories:

1. Likely to Be Accomplished
2. Don’t Bet On It Happening
3. Only in My Dreams

So before I keel over, here it is: The Captain’s Categorized Bucket List!

· Learn the difference between Muting and Unmuting my phone, especially during important business meetings when I am doing a loud and unflattering impersonation of the Project Manager hosting the teleconference. “Er, no ma’am, I was just having a light moment with my cube monkey.” Category: Don’t Bet On It

· Floss. Category: Likely to Be Accomplished, if only because I still have the 40 containers of Floss from the past 20 years of teeth cleanings.

· Make it to full VP of Large Impersonal Insurance Company. Category: Only in My Dreams, but not even there as my dreams mostly involve fireable offenses.

· Write a Poem. Category: HA, just kidding!!!!!

· Write the Great American Novel about con-artist preacher who lures all the flatearthers into a cave in anticipation of the second coming, where they wait patiently until they starve to death or come to their senses, which ever comes first. Category: Likely to Be Accomplished – if you take out the “great” part.

· Solve the riddle of the Sphinx. Seems like the product of the bestial encounter between a desert Nomad and a Lioness after a wild night of partying down by the sand pit. Category: Ha, I just figured it out – cross that one off the list!

· Finish the New York Times Crossword Puzzle…while sober…without cheating. Category: Only in my dreams, where I am occasionally smart, sober and honest.

· Raise a champion Rhode Island Red Rooster; the explanation for this one goes way back in my childhood, when my best friend’s Dad raised chickens to show at local country fairs. Mr. K spent more time with his chickens than with his wife and children and when his wife made him choose between her and the chickens, he chose the chickens, which should be a lesson to any spouse who issues an ultimatum. Never put forth an ultimatum unless it’s designed to be to your advantage no matter the answer. The option of being less appealing than show chickens does not fall into this category. You will not be surprised to learn that this story is unrelated to my point, but I just love telling people that my best friend’s Dad left his mother for a show chicken. But there is a hook. I used to feed the chickens when my friend went away on vacation and there was one Rhode Island Red Rooster who was a mean, nasty sonuvabitch. He would see me coming and begin to foam at the beak as I opened his cage to toss in his feed; without fail, he’d race over and peck me repeatedly, leaving my hands battered and bloodied. I vowed revenge on his offspring. So before I pass, I will find a master chicken breeder and I will buy his best Rooster and will take it to the local fair to win the blue ribbon and listen to strange people talk about the bird as if it was some kind of poultry Pamela Anderson, and then, as the admiring crowd looks on, I will take out my butcher’s knife and lop off his head in plain site in preparation of the bird’s funeral meal, for which he was voluntold by yours truly to be the main course as expiation for the sins of his fathers. My God, I have finally lost it. Category: Don’t bet on it. As much as the thought of revenge appeals to my vulgar side, I’m still scared shitless of chickens. I’ll have to resort to plan B, which is to hire a neglected teenage child of an obsessed show chicken breeder to sneak into the country fair chicken barn in the middle of the night, open all the cages, and release half a dozen foxes for the midnight snack of their lives.

· Buy another pet Tarantula. When I was in college, I had a pet Mexican Tarantula named Boris (fans of The Who are sporting a knowing smile right now); my dorm mates did not appreciate the beauty of large, hairy arachnids the way I did and while I was away for Thanksgiving break, I am convinced the cowards kidnapped, tortured and killed Boris. I still tear up everything Thanksgiving. Due to Boris’s premature demise, I was never able to realize my dream of training a Tarantula to engage in mortal combat with a giant Dragon Fly (Boris, bless his gentle soul, would always run away from the Dragon Fly. Spiders are such misunderstood creatures). Category: Don’t bet on it. Daughter of The Captain said she would disown me if I brought a giant, hairy spider into the house; besides, Tarantulas are pussies.

· Visit Slovakia. This is where my late father was born and also the setting for the Hostel horror movies where young and ridiculously stupid American backpackers are lured by hot, drug addicted Slovak women into the clutches of sadistic bastards who pay for the privilege of horrifically torturing and killing them for fun. Ancestry and B Horror Movie trivia, the perfect trip for The Captain. Category: Likely to Be Accomplished: Great exchange rate makes this very doable just like those slutty Slovak junkies!

· Attend Oktoberfest. 3 weeks of drinking beer with an entire nation. Category: Likely to Be Accomplished. C’mon, does a Muslim Pilgrim go to Mecca??

Believe The Captain when he says: Project Managers cock-a-doodle-doo like Roosters!

Yours on mute…er, I think…F*ck, I can never get that right!

The Captain