Kimberly Wirtz After publishing my previous blog on bucket lists, a friend saw a meme about the anti-bucket list and suggested I write a follow-up entry.
The anti-bucket list is a list of things you’ve done and never want to do again.
Bucket lists are often predicated on having the time, budget and courage to take a risk or expand your horizons. Anti-bucket lists don’t cost you a dime and should, if executed correctly, save you time.
An interesting effect of the anti-bucket list is the perspective you get from creating a list of the crazy, dangerous, painful or stupid things you’ve lived through. One of my sons would have an epic list — a list I am better off never reading.
But, for your reading enjoyment, I give you MY anti-bucket list. Don’t judge. Someone has to serve as a bad example.
Things I hope to never do again
Stab myself in the forehead
I love a good smoothie. My favorite recipe calls for half a can of frozen orange juice concentrate. When all the spoons are in the dishwasher, you use a table knife to get the frozen citrusy goodness out of the can. (Ok, maybe YOU don’t. But I do — or did.)
What you DON’T do is hold that sucker at eye level above the blender while you carve into it. With my 5-year-old son looking on with anticipation, the table knife snapped in half. My hand ricocheted back like a rubber band and the jagged broken edge of stainless steel jammed into my forehead with such speed and force, I didn’t feel pain until I pulled the knife out.
It missed my eye by less than an inch.
I like to think I’m pretty good in a crisis. After all, I had been a certified first responder. I didn’t scream, cry out or burst into tears even though it started to sting like hell and bleed like a faucet, as head lacerations do. I refused to further traumatize my son.
I merely gasped, set the knife on the counter and put a towel to my forehead. Matter-of-factly, I asked him, “Could you go get the first-aid kit for mommy?”
After I cleaned and bandaged my wound, my son (who watched me patch myself up with great interest) exclaimed, “Mom…you took that like a MAN!”
Pffft. Sure, kid.
Have a c-section without anesthetic
Apparently, I have a spinal “inner space” that is tough for an anesthesiologist to get an epidural into properly. How do I know? Well, when I was in labor with my first son, it took the doctor an hour and a half to administer the epidural — a process that should only take a few minutes.
Fast forward past a set of twins to my fourth child, to whom I gave birth in Oklahoma. My epidural only took 10 minutes from start to finish.
I should have been suspicious.
An hour later, it still hadn’t taken effect. When the doctor came in to tell me he was going to have to do a C-section, I told him the medication wasn’t working. I asked that the epidural be removed and changed to spinal anesthesia. “Sure. No problem,” said the anesthesiologist.
Next thing I knew, I was strapped to an operating table with my arms tied down. Helpless. The anesthesiologist had finished his shift and a new one had taken over. No one told him about my request.
“Do you feel this,” the obstetrician asked as he scraped something across my enormous, taught belly that was having constant contractions.
“No.” I was a little busy with too much going on around me, and to me, to process.
When the scalpel made it past the first layer of skin, I screamed. I screamed for the entire procedure. I felt it all. The incision, the removal of my organs and the removal of the baby. Crying, I begged for them to knock me out or kill me. The new anesthesiologist, who I’m told looked like a deer caught in headlights, kept telling me that he could give me more medicine after they got the baby out.
The medication never came. The epidural was not in the inner space and the anesthesia he kept pumping through the epidural didn’t do anything. For some reason, Michael Caine’s accidental overdose in the movie “Cider House Rules” flashed in my mind, and I hoped a handkerchief soaked in ether would cover my face any moment. It didn’t.
When I saw my son, relief washed over me in a flash while I said hello and goodbye. I felt like I was going to die. I WISHED I would die. Instead, I passed out. But not for long. As soon as they started putting the puzzle pieces of my abdomen back together, I awoke and started screaming and crying all over again.
Later, back in my room, the nurses were discussing what happened, and they were pissed. The next morning, the head of the anesthesiology firm visited my room while my husband was at home with our other kids. He asked me to explain what happened. When I finished, he completely gaslit me, dismissed my experience and left.
I felt as if I should just accept what happened and move on.
Not wanting to be accused of overreacting, I tried to let it go. Three years later and living back in Washington, I was diagnosed with PTSD and was encouraged to sue for malpractice. Unfortunately, the statute of limitations for this in Oklahoma was two years.
Bottom line: That was my final pregnancy. Giving birth and the possibility of having another botched delivery went on my anti-bucket list. Since then, I’ve had all the baby-making equipment removed. When you’re done, you’re done.
Get in a fight at Disney World
I’m a pretty nice person most of the time. I blame the ridiculously cheerful “It’s a Small World” ride for triggering the part of me that is not so nice.
After waiting in line for 45 minutes with my four children to experience this famous attraction, we were finally loading into a boat. As the kids were getting seated, a staff member asked me to get out of the boat so a grandmother with mobility issues and her entire family of seven could take that boat instead.
“Oh…sure. No problem.” We climbed back out.
As we did, one of the women in their family made a nasty snide comment — something about us being too stupid to know they got to cut ahead because grandma was handicapped. And she called me a dumb b*tch. Looking back, I realize she may have thought we jumped in ahead of them on purpose. At the time, that distinction would have meant nothing to me. It means little to me now.
I could have brushed it off. I should have brushed it off. But I did not brush it off.
For the duration of this ride, which infamously represents international friendship with a gratingly annoying song that plays continuously on repeat as you slowly drift through a land of multicultural and stereotyped puppets, I was anything BUT friendly.
I will neither confirm or deny if birds were flipped or four-letter words were said.
What I will confirm is that my children may someday discover themselves triggered by that damn song into a negative flashback. I guess everyone needs a repressed memory to work through in therapy.
In my defense, it was hot and humid, as I imagine hell to be. That kind of weather makes me infinitely less likely to put up with any crap. Apparently.
Fall on my face in front of a crowd of strangers
I’m a trainwreck on two feet. Ask anyone.
My first memory of injuring myself in public dates back to 1975 — my kindergarten year. I was playing “chase” at daycare after school, fell face first onto the pavement, and suffered a road rash up the center of my face.
Later that year, I was called up on stage during a school assembly to participate in a magic trick. I tripped going up the stairs to the stage. Since I was wearing a short dress, everyone saw my underwear and I scraped my knees. Blood dripped down my scrawny, pale legs as I held in my tears and soldiered on through the trick.
During a ballet recital the following year, I landed wrong and snapped my ankle. Months later, I jumped out of a swing and broke it again. In the 46 years since then, I have been in casts, sported countless stitches and even had an ankle reconstruction. I still have my own crutches and orthopedic boot, shoe and aircast. Never know when I might need them.
We took our dream vacation to Ireland last year, I fell twice at different historic sites full of tourists. International boundaries mean nothing to me.
A friend of mine went on vacation to Portugal a few years back and had a horrible accident. She fell through a floor of a house under renovation and broke her back. As the medics packaged her up to go to the hospital, she thought, “This stuff happens to Kim, not me!”
Travel tip: Always know where to find the local emergency room.
Note: It’s a sure bet that I will absolutely fall on my face in public again. It’s inclusion on my anti-bucket list is entirely wishful (delusional) thinking.
Lose a kid in public
Three days into the trip to Disney World I mentioned above, we took our entire group of nine to one of the water parks. We had a great day and were completely exhausted while waiting for the charter van to pick us up and take us back to our hotel off property.
When the van arrived, we all climbed in and relaxed on the drive back. I even reached forward to lovingly scratch the head of my youngest son as he started to doze off.
When we got back to the hotel and crawled out of the van, I realized we were short one child. How could that be??
My youngest was missing. For the previous three days, we had scolded and corrected him repeatedly for running ahead. “You’ll get lost and won’t be able to find us!”
By that point in my life, I had spent many years volunteering for a mountain rescue group, but hadn’t been involved in a mission for several years. Yet, the training resurfaced.
Keep calm. Work quickly. Systematically cover all the bases.
We called the van company and had them come back to show us he wasn’t in the van. We tried calling the park, but you can’t just call one of the Disney parks directly. This was before social media — you couldn’t reach anyone through chat or Instant Messenger. We went to the hotel manager for help.
While the hotel tried to reach the water park, the manager drove me back there to see if my son was still there somewhere. My calm outward demeanor was covering my panic. Could he have been abducted??? What if we don’t find him??
On the way there, I got a phone call telling me the police were at the park and they had my son. PHEW! I’ve never been more relieved — and guilt ridden.
As we drove into the parking lot and joined a long line of cars waiting to get to the entrance, I jumped out and ran down the sidewalk to embrace my son who was standing next to someone in a Disney uniform. Only then did I cry. He was safe!
While we were waiting for the van to pick us up earlier, my son had wandered around the back of a ticketing kiosk. In everyone’s exhaustion, no one realized he hadn’t gotten in the van with the rest of us. He later told me that, as he came back around to the front of the kiosk, he saw the van drive away.
“I knew I couldn’t chase you because I could get hit by a car. So I looked for a Disney worker.” She took my son in, offered him any souvenir he wanted (which he declined) and asked for my cell number. This is how I realized that your child needs to learn the entire number, including the area code. It had never occurred to me before.
The relief the other kids felt when we returned to the hotel was short lived. It disappeared as soon as they realized he blew an opportunity to get a free souvenir.
And people wonder why I sometimes identify with the show “Malcom in the Middle.”
The whole ordeal lasted 45 minutes, but when my son got to include what he did that summer in the parent newsletter the first week of school, he said — and I quote, “My mom lost me at Disney World for FOUR HOURS.”
(Hello…Child Protective Services?)
Fit into my clothes from high school
This blog entry is already too long, so I’ll keep this short.
I will never be that size 2 ever again. I will never weigh 105 pounds again. Giving birth to four kids, including a set of twins, suffering various health issues, coping with unbelievable stress, going through Menopause and a complete hysterectomy (ovaries too), enjoying a baking hobby, and nurturing a giant sweet tooth sent that ship sailing far from shore — never to be seen again.
Visible abs are highly overrated anyway.
