The Dan Allen Manifesto St. Patrick's Day Bucketlist

Like it or not, we are all dying. As you read this sentence, each letter brings you closer and closer to death. Death conjures a wide range of emotion, as it is the last thing one does. Ever. To some, death comes as a sweet, sweet relief from the trials and tribulations of the world in which we live. Contrary to popular opinion, I’m not looking forward to dying — not so much because I love life, but more because wakes and funerals make me uncomfortable. So to ensure that I live life to the fullest and when my #winning turns to #dying, I want to be able to look back on my life and be able to say that yes, my life was the balls. So without further ado, this is my bucket list and these are the things I want to do, see, or experience, in no particular order, over the rest of my life.

1. Have a family. This one is more for my grandmother because every time I call her she always asks if I have any girlfriends. And then she sounds sad when I tell her that I don’t, but I promise her that she’ll be the first to know once I find a girl I can trick into going steady with me. So I would like to have a family before I die, so that the Nanimal, my grandma, can smile down upon me. Even though, realistically, my family will wind up looking like Malcolm in the Middle’s family instead of the Brady Bunch (who were actually kind of a broken family, but that’s a different story for a different day).

2. Have a career. This one is definitely for my mom. My mom is really good at nagging, like really good. But I’m really good at tuning people out, so we are at a bit of a domestic impasse. Unfortunately, her nagging me about going to school to better prepare me for the future got through and stuck. Therefore I’ll need a career and stuff. So any of you Friar Fanatics with rich, successful relatives that will inevitably read this, feel free to pass my name along to those rich, successful relatives and hook me up with a job.

3. Write a book. Since Painting with Words has been shelved (Get it?), I’ve been a rudderless ship, just my ideas floating around in the sea of creativity that is my mind. Before I die, I want to write a book so when I go to parties I can tell people that I wrote a book and they didn’t.

4. See the Bruins win a Stanley Cup. From eighth grade to my high school graduation, I saw my favorite football team win a Super Bowl, my favorite baseball team win two (two!) World Series trophies, and my favorite basketball team win Banner 17. Obviously, I’m very grateful that I saw as much as I did, but a Bruins win would complete my sports fanhood. I mean things could be worse, I could’ve been raised a Mets fan.

5. People to value my opinion. You, the reader, might not know this about me, but I’m never wrong. Like, ever. I have the deepest pool of practical knowledge with no use at all. I know it’s kind of contradictory but it makes sense. Now, if you knew someone who knew everything, wouldn’t you ask for his opinion on things and then take it? Me too. But my genius friends have a tendency to argue about something, ask my opinion, dismiss it, argue for another half hour, and wind up at the conclusion I drew. As I said before, life is fleeting. We should not be wasting our time arguing, when I can settle every argument in a hurry.

6. Be on Jeopardy!. Preferably the College Tournament so I could stand between two kids with no social skills in their Cal Poly and MIT sweaters. Of course I’d be in my URI sweatshirt and I’d just kill it on the pop culture and sports questions and then stay competitive in the literature and word play categories. I’d concede the chemistry questions, but I’m okay with that. Of course I don’t think I’d make any friends because I wouldn’t be able to laugh at Alex Trebek’s shitty jokes, or the inevitable Sean Connery references made by the nerds to either side of me on the stage who don’t even watch SNL, but happened to watch old Celebrity Jeopardy clips on youtube between their study sessions.

7. See Gay Marriage legalized in America. Not to get all political on you, but I’d like to see this happen. I subscribe to the belief that you like what you like and that’s that. If two guys want to get married in my town, I’d say go for it. Of course I’d be lying if watching two guys kiss doesn’t make me do a double take, but as long as I’m neither kissing party, dig in.

8. Own property in Europe. Another fun fact about me is that I’d love to be cultured. Of course the only time I’ve been subjected to the arts and cultures of people different than my own was the 4 years I spent in a public high school, so forgive me if I feel there is more to the rest of the world than shitty reggaeton and mediocre soccer teams. So to combat this, I am going to be proactive and buy something somewhere in Europe with all the money I made during my career in item number two. Technically I own 1/64 ish of the old O’Hara Township in County Sligo, Ireland, but I’m pretty sure the family priest may have given it to the Church.

9. Learn to dance. I mean I can Bernie with the best of them, but like how every great pitcher can reach back for a few more miles per hour on their fastball to get the strike out, I need to learn a dance that will turn some heads. I’ve dabbled in salsa dancing before, so maybe I could build on that, move to South America, and go by Dani Alvarez for a few years.

10. Do hot yoga. Basically, as far back as I can remember I’ve always wanted to do hot yoga. I know I said before I wasn’t gay (not that there’s anything wrong with that), but my desire to sweat my balls off in a room full of hippies while standing on my head leads me to believe that I might have the recessive gene for the gay or something.

11. Visit the pyramids. I mean, everyone knows that they put there by aliens and not Jewish slaves. And if Al Gore is right about global warming, the Mediterranean and the Gulf of Suez will overflow and wash away the pyramids and the Sphinx. So in a race against time, I need to get over to Egypt and see me some pyramids, because last time Al Gore was sure of something he was accurate. Deadly accurate.

12. Vacation to every single MLB Stadium in one summer. This plan has kind of been in the works since I was in high school. Basically, my two oldest BFFs and I decided that, hey, we like baseball, we like traveling to far away stuff, and we sure as shit like to sleep in RVs, we should visit all the baseball stadiums in the country. Since we were footloose and fancy free in high school, we decided we’d just take a summer off from life and travel the country and take in some baseball. But like dumbasses, we decided to go to college instead. So now I’ll have to wait for my retirement to make this trip. At that point, I’ll be too old to even enjoy it and I’ll turn into the crotchety old man that I’ve always dreamed of becoming.

13. Speak my mind and not care about repercussions. I tend to be a bit of a loose cannon when I speak, but I’m working on getting better. If you happen to see me out somewhere and I’m not smiling, it’s because I’m using all of my willpower to keep in something offensive that is on the tip of my tongue.

14. Learn how to surf. You show me someone that surfs that isn’t the coolest guy in the room, and I’ll show you a room full of surfers. Ya dig? Surfing looks like a lot of fun to me; I live in the Ocean State and I know how to swim so there isn’t any reason that I don’t surf. Plus, I know my way around a boogie board, which is just the Ramon to the surfboard’s Pedro Martinez.

15. See a woman elected President of the United States. Just kidding.

Have a fun and safe St. Patrick’s Day, everyone.