Life Choices We All Face (Before We Die)

Which to choose?

It must be that so many Americans are aging. Mortality seems to be the issue around which everything moves. Look on the shelves of your local bookstore: "One Thousand Places to Visit Before You Die" "One Hundred Things To Do Before You Die" on and on ad nauseam. If I were to take the rest of my life to do selected things and visit all of those places, I'd need to live four hundred extra years! Of course, I have visited places like Angkor Wat and done more than a few of the requisite deeds, but there are plenty left. I get almost panicky thinking that I have so much to do and so little time. At a time in my life when I consider a good day one in which I wake up breathing, I'm not hard to please. It's a good time for travel agents, I guess (terrorist threats notwithstanding). The book that really caught my attention the other day at B & N featured a title which left me a bit piqued: "The Ten Conversations You Need To Have With Your Child." I wish I could report that I scanned the table of contents and was satisfied that I had met the requirements in the conversation department; truth is, I figured that no matter what I might have missed, the book held no value for me. My kids stopped listening to me years ago (probably to their benefit!). Instead, I made up my own list of valuable conversations, all of which seem vital to me. This is not to denigrate the talks we should have about sex, protected sex, cooties and the benefits/liabilities of life with the opposite gender, peer pressure (the pressure to ogle the swimsuit issue of SI), and the need for independence so parents can eat occasionally at restaurants that don't give happy meals. These are necessary, sure, but I think my list is one that cries out for parental attention as well. Here it is.

1. Doc Savage or The Avenger. Face it: there is room for only one really super superhero, and these two are the epitome...you don't really believe there is a character like Superman who can fly, do you? These two are the real deal, and they are making something of a comeback in Paul Malmont's recent book "The China Death Cloud Peril." Go to bookgasm.com for an interview with the author.

2. New York or French vanilla. Don't laugh! My friends Kathleen and Carol get positively adamant about selecting the proper vanilla ice cream type. More than a few icy stares have come my way from making the wrong selection. Since I believe ice cream is a major food group unto itself, flavor is not an issue to me, but it most decidedly is important to others.

3.Robert B. Parker or Kinky Friedman. Both authors are of the detective-character ilk, but the dissimilarities are far more striking. You decide: Spenser or the Kinkster. I can't help you. I can, however, say that after a recent blog I wrote about K.Friedman, I got an immediate reply from an individual decrying said Mr. Friedman as a terrible person...followed several weeks later by a Friedman devotee who vowed to track down the anti-Kinky poster... plots and sub-plots!

4. Milk chocolate or dark chocolate/Mounds or Almond Joy. Again, the sides are definitely drawn very clearly in this debate. Any child who goes off to school not having made the decision is in for some rough, gang-related activity! The success of our Hallowe'en nights was often judged by the amount of which chocolate form we had scored. As an adult, I skirt the issue by giving out carrot sticks and tofu chunks.

5. Christina Aguilera or Britney Spears. For my money , I'll take Annette Funicello if I have to select a former Mouseketeer!

6. Coke or Pepsi.It figures that no matter which one might favor, any restaurant will have the other and just presume it will be OK with the patron. Truth be told, I can only remember a few times I've heard someone say, "No, dammit, it's NOT alright! I want what I want! Go get it for me, or there will be no tip for you!" Hey, this is America; stand up for what you want! I check out the high-fructose corn syrup (which elevates triglyceride levels and adds a LOT of empty calories), the caffeine and the phosphoric acid in both and give both a pass. My body is a temple...one built for ice cream and chocolate.

I can now rest peacefully. I won't have visited every place or completed every task, geocaching for one, but I can cash in the few chips I have remaining and feel comfortable in the knowledge that my kids know what's important.