A Strange, Possibly Odd or Potentially Embarrassing Bucket List
Let’s do it! Let’s publish things that are totally doable but that might look a little bizarre.
On my daily meanderings through Medium, I stumbled across Adrienne Beaumont’s “Opposite Bucket List” and subsequently, Ginger Cook’s “Backward Bucket List” prompt, and it got me to thinking.
Most of my ideas for articles come to me when I’m walking, which I do almost every day — mostly because I have a pretty sedentary job and I enjoy the movement. Additionally, I don’t want to become the personification of the laughing Buddha as I blaze a trail across my living room to the fridge to Little Lotta myself through yet another morsel of food!
I read Adrienne’s article over a cup of coffee and followed the three links she listed below it like Alice going headfirst down the rabbit hole. As such, bucket lists were swirling in my head as I made my way around my quiet neighbourhood. I was deep in thought as a yellow school bus drove by, my subconscious immediately responding with “I want to ride on one of them someday.”
Light bulb moment: what are some other things that I want to do before I die that are strange, possibly odd, or potentially embarrassing? What is my bizarre bucket list?
Let’s begin with what caused my Einsteinian revelation.
1. Riding in a yellow school bus
Sad, but true. Unlike many of you, I wasn’t raised in Canada or America where these beasts roam the streets freely — oh no, I had to be taken to school by my parents or later, ride my motorbike. As anything not nailed down in South Africa gets stolen, I’m pretty sure that public schools were not about to buy a fleet of school buses only to have them disappear a few days later.
As I’m a product of John Hughes-esque 80s high school movies, I’m fascinated — and kinda in love — with these behemoths. I know that most school kids hate them due to the abundant teasing (if the movie scripts are accurate) that rages between the seats, not to mention that their sole purpose is to carry you to the one place you don’t want to be.
I don’t care! I’m trying to convince my housemate to find a yellow school bus driver who’ll let me go along for a ride to appease my little 80s-high-school-movies heart.
2. Climbing a water tower
Whilst on the subject of teen angst 80s movies, let’s stop off in small town America for a second and climb a water tower.
Now I’m not into vandalism so I have no intention of spray painting, “Vanessa Loves [insert name here]” on to the side of one of these iconic structures; partly because it seems like too much effort, and partly because I’m extremely single.
When I arrived in the US in 2017, I stared up at all water towers with pure reverence, all the while smiling at the oddity of my reality in that moment.
If anyone knows a small town where the cops are friendly and will look the other way as I scale the ladder and dangle my feet over the edge drinking a Bud Light, please let me know — I’ll get there!
3. Going to an NFL football game
Another oddity (of which I have many) is that I wasn’t raised on American Football and yet I have a die-hard love of the game.
Despite playing field hockey in primary school and basketball in high school — how the hell did no-one know I was a lesbian? — I was never much of a sports watcher. I was surrounded by rugby and cricket fanatics but neither sport floated my boat.
After a brief stint of following rugby when I was living in New Zealand — my ex-girlfriend was a massive fan and took me along for the ride — I was delighted to find a few NFL play-off games on an obscure public TV channel after moving to Australia.
Due to the massive time difference, the Super Bowl is shown at 7:30am on a Monday morning in Western Australia; and, I took many a Monday off to watch as I lounged in bed sipping coffee, anticipating the day I could watch the game at the right time, beer in hand and fans all around me.
I got my wish in a little dive bar in San Antonio, Texas, in early 2018.
Alas, despite attending a college football game and the inaugural game of the ill-fated AFL, I have never managed to get to an NFL game.
4. Tailgating at a football game
Whilst we’re on the subject of football, I only found out about the existence of tailgating when I lived in San Antonio and immediately became fascinated by this extraordinary pastime.
Sitting on the tailgate of a big-ass redneck truck having a beer, eating food designed to clog your arteries and enjoying the camaraderie of others who have the same irrational desire for the boys sporting specific colours to beat the boys in the other colours is my strange bucket list item number 4.
Go Niners, go Cowboys, go Saints!
5. Go back to college
Yes folks, I’m one of those! As I’m pretty much a ‘girlie swot,’ my desire to go back to university courses through my veins almost constantly.
I went to university for the first time at thirty-seven, electing to start working after high school as I had zero desire to study further. High school kind’a sucked for me for the most part and the thought of spending another four years “prostrate to the higher mind” as Emily Saliers sings out, was too awful to contemplate, so I started earning money and buying stuff.
After deciding to expand my mind instead of wasting it, I sampled higher education in 2011 and was hooked. Like an addiction, it took me over completely and now I’m Jonesing for another hit.
The moment I raise enough funds, my ass will be firmly planted in a lecture hall or in a college library where all the other girlie swots can be found.
Come to the Geek Side, we have π!
Yes, I’m fully aware that this oddly compelling bucket list is very North America-centric, but as I’ve lived in Africa and Australia and have zero desire to live in Europe, I’ve ticked off most of the bizarrely fascinating and odd items in the wilds of the Southern Hemisphere.
Fly your freak flags my compadres and tell us your dirty, strange, possibly odd or potentially embarrassing little secrets.
