An alley connects the downtown office building where I work to Illinois Street. Even though the pathway is a nifty shortcut to Panera Bread, where I like to pick up a nice BBQ Chopped Chicken salad, I never walk it alone. Colleagues find my reluctance silly, as no one to our recollection has been assaulted, murdered, or dismembered there. But my thought process works differently: If something bad is going to happen, it probably will happen to me.
Reading other people’s bucket lists is fun, but I’ve never had the desire to compile one myself. Risk-takers yearn to climb Mount Everest and sail the blue Pacific, but boring people such as I are satisfied spending their days bundled up in an afghan while watching reruns of The Big Bang Theory and eating Double Stuf Oreos.
