Advice October 2011 ATLANTIC MAGAZINE

What's Your Problem?

By Jeffrey Goldberg

Image credit: Nishant Choksi

I am a single woman in my 30s, and I would like to have a baby on my own. I don’t want to go to a sperm bank —too anonymous—and I’m lucky because I have four very acceptable guy friends, any of whom I think would be a willing donor if I choose to go that route. I’ve made lists of their various attributes, and they all basically even out in the end. The only place where they really differ is in their level of academic achievement, specifically where they went to college. Two went to Ivy League schools (Harvard, Columbia), one went to Duke, and one went to a second-tier state school, the University of Kansas. I assume their undergraduate choices had to do with their SAT scores (I don’t know how they did on standardized testing, and I think it might be rude to ask), so those choices do seem pertinent. How much should I weigh this in making my decision?

D.S., New York, N.Y.

Dear D.S.,

To avoid making such a difficult decision, I suggest you collect sperm from all four men, combine the donations in a test tube, and inject this potent mixture using the traditional turkey-baster method. Whichever sperm outswims, outfights, or outfoxes the others will fertilize your egg, which is as it should be, because I think the most ruthless and mercenary sperm is axiomatically the best sperm for you. I suspect that the University of Kansas sperm will win this competition. Just look at the school’s football program: while not on a par with Auburn or LSU, it could crush Columbia or Harvard. As for Duke, I would guess that the sperm will be too drunk to compete.

Prompted by various books and movies, I’ve decided to make a bucket list of all the things I want to do before I die. The problem is, I don’t know how to limit myself. I have a fair amount of money, and a good amount of time left (I hope), but there are a million places to visit and a million things to do. How do you think I should organize myself in this endeavor?

L.D., Miami, Fla.

Dear L.D.,

I understand why you are flummoxed by the variety of choices before you. My suggestion is that you focus your thinking by making a reverse bucket list of all the things you are positive you don’t want to do. I’ve made a reverse bucket list of my own that you may use as a model. Here are 25 of the things that I hope never to do:

1. Climb Mount Everest

2. See any movie or read any book about self-actualizing rich people who climb Mount Everest

3. See that movie about the guy who cuts off his arm in a ravine that isn’t even on Mount Everest

4. Spend three weeks in a Turkish prison—again

5. Read The Remarkable Millard Fillmore, by George Pendle

6. Adopt small African children for ornamental purposes

7. Obey indoor firearms regulations

8. Retire to Abbottabad

9. Take a photograph of my penis and then tweet it

10. Collateralize a debt obligation

11. Juice cleanse

12. Colon cleanse