Bucket List

Bucket lists are important. They give us goals to strive for, provide a sense of accomplishment, and offer a sense of excitement so often missing from our daily lives. While most of us formulate our lists when daydreaming or hearing of other people’s colorful adventures, I will occasionally add an item to my bucket list retroactively; that is to say, I have an experience so moving or enriching that only after it has occurred do I realize my life would not have been complete without it. I had one of these today.

Shortly after Mom and Dad arrived for a brief stopover this evening, I ran out to pick up some Chinese food. First, I had to swing by the Exxon as the Jewbaru was on fumes. Having gassed up, I hastily jumped back in the car in order to get dinner and return home as quickly as possible.

About 3 feet from the pump, I felt a *thunk* and heard a dull *clunk*, as though an enormous pipe wrench had been thrown to the ground.

“What the hell?!” I exclaimed out my open window as I looked in my rear view mirror. I saw a nattily dressed businesswoman from the other side of the pump waving to me.

“You’re good,” she called out cheerfully. It was at this very moment that my brain put it all together: my haste, the pump, the thunk and the clunk: I had pulled off with the gas hose still attached to my car.

“I’m pretty sure I’m not…” I replied to Ms. Business. I sprang from the Jewbaru only to have my suspicions confirmed. There, hanging flaccidly from my right quarter panel was the hose, now a victim of a random act of mindlessness.

“Oh, this is too stupid! ” I laughed to Bettie Business. “I have to take a picture!”, I exclaimed.

“First time, eh?” She smiled and swaggered away with her heels clicking on the pavement as only a well seasoned Hose Snatcher can.

I gingerly replaced the hose in its cradle, all the while looking toward the store, astonished that alarms had not sounded, the police had not been summoned, and no one was bounding toward me screaming obscenities.

I dashed into the store, startling the two twenty somethings behind the counter.

“Y’ALL!” I exclaimed, “I have just snatched the hose off the gas pump. I am SO sorry!”, I spewed. Tiffany Tattoo’s eyes went wide with angst. Her mouth, unable to form coherent speech, opened and closed rhythmically. Her colleague, The Southern Charmer, however, took it all in stride.

“I gotchu”, he said calmly.

Tiffany looked at him with utter dismay.

“No, really, is there something I need to do? I mean, I put it back on the pump, but the thing is unhooked from the thing…” I gestured lamely toward my victim, my voice trailing off as Southern Charm continued smiling my direction.

“I gotchu”, he repeated, clearly channeling Yoda now, “I gotchu”, he waved me on my way gently.

“Ok, well, um…thanks, and I am REALLY REALLY sorry”, I repeated as I drifted out the door.

As I ever so gently began my second departure, the words of my friend Melinda came back to me on the breeze, “you are the smartest female I know”. I began laughing hysterically, tears streaming down my face. This moment of embarrassment, of humility, of gracelessness and absurdity, was not to be missed. If this is not what a bucket list is for, I don’t want one.