The Anti-Bucket List - GBE2 prompt of the week

I've been playing with this topic idea all week... To write a fiction piece or go with an actual blog about the fabled 'Bucket List'. You know, the hundred and one things I really should do before I kick the bucket... which I probably drowned in in the first place! Clumsy doesn't even begin to describe me. Anyway...

In truth, I don't have a bucket list, and I don't want one. I've found that the things I want to do happen if and when I am ready for them. So, here's my 'Anti-Bucket List'. In other words, some things I DON'T want to do before I die. Enjoy.

1 – Go to Egypt – From a very young age, perusing a copy of the Tutankhamen brochure, 'liberated' by my dad from the London exhibition, I knew I wanted to go to Egypt. I wanted to see pyramids rising majestically on the Giza Plateau. I wanted to walk through Amarna, in the footsteps of Akhenaten, and marvel at Hatshepsut's red temple. Then I grew up... I still love everything there is to see, hear, smell, touch and wonder at when it comes to my beloved Pharaohs, but I turn into a melting semblance of a waxwork mummy, complete with rivers of sweat and headaches that echo funerary drums the minute the temperature gets above 10 degrees Celsius! Logic tells me that Egypt is not the place for me. Today there is the wonder of the internet and this site in particular – Fabulous stuff – which allows me to travel without the heat. Oh yeah, I reckon the Pharaohs would have approved of not having to shift out of their palaces.

2 – Break any more toes – Honestly, when I said clumsy I meant it! I have broken all but one of my toes, some more than once, in the past (cough) umpty-umpty years. I usually break them by rounding corners and kicking radiator pipes where they connect through the floor. Don't ask me how, but I have an unerring instinct for this. It's a skill I tell ya! The best was probably karma biting me in the ass for being mean to a fluffy thing. I'd had a long day of screaming kids when the cats decided to join in. One went for another with really evil intent to wound and this rabid ball of fluff and claws was heading straight for one of the kids who was playing on the floor, and happened to be in the way of the fight.

There was nothing gonna stop this cat, certainly not something as insignificant as a child! I had another child on one arm, a pile of washing in the other and nothing free to stop this cat but my foot... You're ahead of me, aren't you? Yep, I kicked out in hopes of deflecting teeth, claws and cat cussing. The cat was faster. He jinked sideways and I kicked a chair. To my credit, I only dropped the washing, and I merely uttered 'Sugar' (but the most venomous use of that sweet word you have ever heard, believe me!). I ended up at the hospital with my little toe on my right foot pointing directly east in all its dislocated glory! Oh... and it was broken too (le sigh)

3 – Worry about my 'look' – The last time I was slim I was eleven. Then I nearly died during an appendix operation (it burst, blood poisoning, blah blah blah). From then on I put meat on my bones. It never once stopped me having the interest of men, skinny women looked at my boob shelf with some envy (if only they knew the back and neck pain!) and large women gave me conspiratorial smiles as we sashayed our voluptuousness around town, trailing wolf whistles in our wake.

What the f.... happened? When did having a round bum and bouncy boobs become a sin? Where did all these rail thin women appear from? When did everyone suddenly become obsessed with being 'Hollywood' thin? It wasn't overnight, that I am sure of. It was creeping, insidious and it destroyed so many as it took over. Women were suddenly scared to be big. If you couldn't get into the smallest size there was something wrong with you. If you ate more than a lettuce leaf dipped in holy water for lunch you were going straight to the seventh doughnut of Hell. (sigh)

Enough already! Yeah, I'm a big girl. Yeah, I still carry a tummy from giving the world four intelligent, happy, productive kids. Yeah, I love to feed my family (and anyone else who drops by), I love cooking, and yeah, I take up cook's privilege more often than I should. Do I care? Nope. I do not give a flying fart! As long as I feel fit in myself, don't die walking (or even, on occasion, running) up the stairs and my blood pressure isn't visiting the space station, I can live with it. If I can, so should everyone else!

Ok, ranting done (smile). Enjoy the video. It seemed appropriate.

Bright Blessings

Mojo