The Bucket List

7

"So whose car is this, exactly?" Sam asked. We'd driven to an old junkyard that Jake knew the owner of. The girls were busy today, so it was just me, Jess, and the trap guys.

"It's mine. Well, it was mine. But now I've got more cars than I know what to do with," I said.

"And this car barely qualifies as a car. It hardly works, so we're demolishing this shit," said Jess.

"Yo, who's channel is this going on?" asked Corey.

"Huh?" I asked.

"Oh, are we not filming this? Elton did it," said Corey.

"Are you cool with filming it, Rose?" asked Colby.

"Yeah, sure," I said.

"We can put it on Colby's channel," said Jake. "Unless you have one, Rose."

"Me? No, I could barely afford my laptop," I said.

"Girl, you're rich now. You can start a channel if you want," said Corey.

"No, that's okay. Not now. We can put it on Colby's channel," I said.

"Hey, what if we make it a series? Your bucket list series?" asked Colby. "Destroying something is on there. This is our first task."

"Do it," said Jess.

"Okay, sure," I replied.

"Now let's smash this bitch," said Jess.

Sam and Colby set up some cameras while Jake and Corey led us over to a shed in the back of the yard's lot.

"Alright, choose your weapon," Jake said dramatically. We walked into the shed to see the walls lined with all different types of tools. Jess and Corey chose sledgehammers, Jake chose a giant rubber mallet, and I chose a bat. We grabbed a hammer for Sam and a bat for Colby, then walked back over to the car.

"Okay, we're filming the intro," said Sam. He stepped forward and pushed a button on the camera.

"What's up guys, it's Colby Brock, welcome back to my channel," he said. Jeez, this was all super professional. I'm not sure I'd ever watched a vlog in my life.

"Today we're taking a page from Uncle Elton's book and destroying a car," said Sam.

"Except it's not Colby's car this time," said Corey.

"It's Rose's!" Jake said excitedly. "Come here, loser."

Jess dragged me along with her into the camera's frame, where Colby slung his arm around my shoulder.

"This is my new friend Rose, and this is her best friend Jess," he said.

"Hello, millions of people," said Jess, waving at the camera.

"Alright, well we're going to go ahead and get started. What are we using, Jake?" asked Sam.

"We've got a mallet, sledgehammers, and some bats," said Jake, handing Colby a bat and Sam a hammer. "Now let's get to smashing, brothers."

"Hell yeah!" exclaimed Corey. We all stepped back toward my car. I'd cleaned it out earlier, so nothing important was inside. Still, I was a little sad to see this car go. This was the only thing I'd ever bought that was over $50. It only cost me about $800, but I'd saved up for forever in South Dakota to buy it. I'd been living in LA for about 18 months now, one year with Krystal and six months in my sad excuse of an apartment. Now I was living large.

"You ready, Rose?" asked Jess.

"Yeah, yeah. It's just weird. It's like this is all I have left of my struggle, you know? Buying this car was a really big achievement for me. But I'm so ready for this. Let's do it," I said.

"You do the honors," said Colby, holding his hand out to the car.

"Gladly," I replied. I walked over to the shitty car, stared at the windshield, and then swung my metal bat down at it as hard as I could. A spiderweb crack sprawled across the windshield and a smile appeared on my face.

"Fun, right?" asked Corey.

"Surprisingly very fun, yes," I laughed.

"Let's fucking go!" Jake yelled excitedly. And, with that, we all went at it. We smashed in all the windows, dented the hood, demolished the trunk. Jake and Colby even ripped off one of the doors and started beating that too.

It felt good to just go ham on something and completely destroy it. I'd been feeling sadness for a long time and channeling sadness into rage was pretty easy for me to do. By the time we were done, I felt like a brand new person. I'd smashed away the struggling mess I had been for the last 19 years. I was a new person now, given an impossible opportunity to become whatever I wanted. I had the means to do anything, and now I had a giant group of friends to do those things with.

"Alright, let's film the outro," said Colby. We all walked back over to the camera.

"Alright, guys. So, that was us smashing a car. Surprisingly none of us got hurt," he laughed.

"We definitely should have brought safety goggles," said Sam.

"Don't try this at home, kids," said Jake.

"But if you do, don't tell anyone that we inspired you," said Corey.

"Also, exciting announcement, this video is going to be the first in a new series I'm starting. Rose and I met under some... strange circumstances to say the least, and we decided to make a bucket list to help her learn to love life a little more. We'll be documenting the more exciting things on the list for you all to watch. That's all we've got for you today, so I'll see you guys next time. Peace out," said Colby before covering the camera with his hand.

"And that is how you film a YouTube video," said Jess, applauding Colby.

"Thank you, thank you. It's Thursday right now, so I'll send that video out to Reggie and we'll get it up by tomorrow," said Colby.

"Oh, does Reggie edit your videos?" I asked.

"Yup," replied Sam.

"Is one night enough time?" I asked.

"Absolutely not, but Colby does this every week, so Reggie's used to it by now," said Jake.

"Ah. Got it," I said.