Bucket List?

It's funny how certain words and phrases come into vogue, when you've never heard them before, but suddenly everyone is talking about them.

For instance, a couple years ago the musical "Momma Mia" came to Star Light Theater. It was a fun little show, but definitely not the "Feel-good show of the summer" as it was advertised. That title belonged to "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang." Any way, there were a couple things about the show that I found annoying in. One was how everyone was really shocked and surprised that the main character was getting married at the absurdly young and unheard of age of 20. Right. The second annoying thing was that they kept talking about how she wanted a "White Wedding." I had never heard that phrase before (and only heard it occasionally since then) and it took me quite a while to realize that it merely meant a big, fancy wedding. At the time, I wondered why on earth they invented a new phrase that no one would understand, rather than simply saying "big, fancy wedding."

The latest phrase that hit me the same way is "Bucket List". It apparently has nothing to do with listing things you need to clean, or a honeydew list, which were my first two guesses, but rather a wish list of things you'd maybe like to do someday. I've heard this multiple times over the last few weeks, in different contexts, folks asking each other what was on their bucket list. I'm not planning on making one. I have no problem with someone talking about having enough spoons, but at the present, the phrase "bucket list" goes down my spine like nails on a chalk board.