No Kicking the Bucket

So I pulled into Will’s Pit Stop, a local convenience store, to get a refill in my 64 oz. insulated container that I’ve had forever. It’s so old . . . the store in Provo where I bought it (Harts) has been out of business for more than a decade. I still use it because it is large and keeps drinks cold all day long. The handle broke a while back but I put it back together with some black tape.

Anyway, I am filling my jug and a handsome Hispanic guy in his 20s looks over and, in a thick Mexican accent, says, “Hey, how much do you pay for that thing?” I explain that it ranges from 80 cents to $1.15. “He looks at me, then once again at the size of my refill, and says, “Oh, man. I gotta get me one of those buckets.”

TANGENT 1: When I proposed to my wife one fateful Christmas Day, she was expecting a ring when she opened the black velvet box, not a stack of refill coupons from Harts. Then again, I also did not expect to have to retreat so quickly to the closet where I had hidden the actual engagement ring.

TANGENT 2: During my high school years we did not have a basketball standard at our house as it was built on a hill and what little level ground we had was either grass or a terraced strawberry patch. In one little section of driveway, however, I mounted a bucket with the bottom cut out so I could practice my jumpshots and “dunks” with a tennis ball.

TANGENT 3: Our family has a variety of interesting nicknames. One brother whom I greatly admire is called Bucket. One of his boyhood friends just started calling him that and it stuck. In a later post I will share what I know about Speckle-Nosed Trout, Dusty Dan, Wiener, and my own legacy with nicknames.