American Fez

My Bucket List

Compiling a bucket list, that morbid agenda of stuff to do before you die, is, like death itself, a rather self-defeating experience. Whatever the desired activity listed, whether it be a travel destination or an extreme sporting pursuit, chances are that you will modify its details over time as new horizons and the desirable objects they reveal are encountered. For instance, when I was in my profoundly pretentious twenties, at the very top of my bucket list was the cherished dream of making a pilgrimage to the annual Noizestadt Festival, to hear cult composer Ludwig Maniak's Schitzmuzik performed in its natural habitat, an über-intellectual event I'd read much about in various artsy magazines. Then I actually heard several minutes of Schitzmuzik and traveling to Noizestadt was suddenly toppled from its lofty perch by a profound wish to avoid Noizenstadt and its atonal festival at all costs (an ambition so far fulfilled, except for a brief scare when I got lost in the Austrian Alps six years ago).
Since those days of misguided youth, I have attempted to keep the contents of my bucket list less defined and more symbolic; so symbolic, in fact, that my bucket list these days is actually just a list of different buckets with symbolic value; buckets that I consider to be somewhat emblematic of the riches life has to offer. There is the champagne bucket, naturally, because we should always be celebrating something. The small domestic tub for turning upside-down and wearing on our heads for playing Game of Thrones with a toilet brush as a sword when we should really be doing the household chores. The red fire bucket for running around with while screaming "Fire!" just because we're bored at work. The elegant clay urn that adds a romantic, classical Italianate touch to otherwise neglected gardens. The antique silver pail for attending Halloween parties or Zodiac theme evenings dressed as Aquarius the water-bearer. The mysterious copper cauldron that we only use to brew outlandish and experimental soups and broths from weird, witchy recipes. And finally the seaside-souvenir sandcastle bucket, obviously, for erecting a temporary perimeter of coastal defenses around the area of the beach we're sitting on.
Although the order of precedence might change from season to season, this bucket list of must-have buckets can surely be carved in stone. So far I have succeeded in only obtaining six of them. One still eludes me. Can you guess which one it is? ... Yes, that's right. It's the small domestic tub. I'm damned if I'm going spend $4.98 retail on something that costs less than fifty cents to manufacture, even if it is made of stain-resistant durable rubber and features an easy-grip molded handle. But anyway, I don't believe I will yearn for any other types of buckets until the day I finally kick the big metaphorical bucket: a day I hope is far off in the very distant future.

Huis Clos

I'm in the IKEA mega store, pushing a laden shopping cart through a maze of shelving stacked high with must-have-but-don't-really-need products, desperately seeking the checkout area. It's such a labyrinth in here. Any minute now an assistant Minotaur in a yellow staff shirt might emerge from behind a rack of modular bookcases to demand if he can help me find anything.
"I've been lost for hours." I'd say. "Please can you point me towards the exit?"
The Minotaur would throw his bull's head back and roar with laughter. "There is no exit," he'd reply. "That's just some ancient myth. Nobody believes in the exits anymore." Then he'd direct me to a display of Scandinavian couches with washable cushions.
Perhaps I should have left a trail of little wooden pegs behind me, so I could have retraced my steps back to the entrance. I'm sure I've already been past these Vuillard Parisian theme toilet seat covers at least three times in the last hour. They're unsurprisingly on sale. Maybe someone in the Food Court might know where the checkout is? I can ask at the meatball counter ...

"Next ... sauce or no sauce?"
"I don't want anything. I'm just looking for the checkout?"
"Cashiers are where the soda cooler is at."
"But I'm not buying any food. I just want to pay for this stuff I got from the actual store. Can you tell me where the regular checkout is?"
"It's downstairs somewhere, near the parking lot where you came in."
"Yeah I know, but I can't actually seem to find my way back there."
"Well you can go to the elevators by the bathrooms which are where the closet organizing section is and you can ask somebody there which floor the checkout is at. Okay... Next ... sauce or no sauce?"

I trudge off in search of the elevators, slaloming my way through a thicket of shoe racks and hanging sweater boxes, eventually finding them at the end of a corridor where exhausted families slump against the wall like refugees from Plywoodland. These are my people. Soon transportation will arrive and we can begin the next stage of our migration to the Exits.

Bing! "Register number 338 is now available. Please proceed to register number 338. This register is located on Level 9 and can be accessed via the Red Zone walkway followed by the Green Zone escalators. A customer care professional will greet you on Level 9 and escort you through the checkout tunnel to register number 338. All coupons and rebates must be handed in to the appropriate service concierge at this time. If you have coupons and rebates please proceed to the service concierge desk at the Red Zone walkway embarkation point before proceeding to register number 338. Register number 338 is now available. Please proceed to ...." Bing! "Register number 476 is now available. Please proceed to register number 476. This register is located on Level 12b via the shuttle buses leaving from the Blue Zone mezzanine. A customer care professional will greet you at the transfer portal and conduct you to the Orange Zone zip-line. You're on your own after that I'm afraid. Register number 476 is now available. Please proceed to register number 476. All other registers are currently occupied serving other customers. Please stand by for the next available register."

And that's just the 10 items or less line. When I make it to the front I'm assigned Register number 893, housed in the Purple Annex, apparently just a short monorail trip from the main building. This is it, I tell myself as the train pulls out, the final chapter of my IKEA odyssey. At last the long search for a checkout counter is over and I should be home with just enough time to self-assemble my stuff before bed.

"Did you find everything you were looking for today?" cashier number 893 asks when I arrive.
"Well, the stuff I wanted was no problem," I reply with as much arch-eyebrow as I can muster. "But I had a little trouble finding you."
He looks at me blankly, his barcode scanner bleeping expectantly. "And what is the stuff you want to buy today?"
At which point I realize that I've left my shopping basket at the meatball counter when I asked for directions.

Get Thee To A Punnery

I often wonder if Elizabethan courtiers, in those rare, carefree moments not consumed by plotting behind the arras, ever played "air lute" during musical recitals given for dear old Queen Bess. I can only imagine that the temptation to imitate elaborate finger work from a particularly exuberant ayre must have been difficult to resist, even if the air lutenist did risk losing his head should he accidentally rustle his billowy sleeves too loudly and thereby disturb the concert. And perhaps our long-legged melancholics even punned about performing an "air ayre." .... Somewhere, perhaps not far from Anne Hathaway's cottage, tourists can hear the sound of a balding bard wincing.