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" THERE WAS THAT TIME we won the game; it was just a blooper, but it did go over the second baseman&amp;#039;s head and a run scored, and the whole team got to go to Dairy Queen. There was also that time a boy said fuck and we laughed along with everyone else, and he said we didn&amp;#039;t even know what fuck meant, and we said we did but then couldn&amp;#039;t prove it and started to cry. We will never forget the time Mrs. Van Dyke threw out all of Mr. Van Dyke&amp;#039;s Playboysone sultry garbage night so many summers ago. Nor will we forget that time we stood on Debbie Anderson&amp;#039;s stoop, clutching a piece of folded, blue-lined loose-leaf on which we had written, I heard you went to third base with Jeffrey Kramer. Would you go to third base with me? and then, when Debbie&amp;#039;s father answered the door, we handed the note to him.  It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, and we weren&amp;#039;t even in high school yet. Nobody asked us, but we&amp;#039;re not sure we could pick the single best day in our life or the single worst. There have been so many wonderful and awful days, and no doubt better and worse ones to come, that the task of ranking them seems not only unfathomable but slightly unfair. But this is the age of the examined life, whether worth living or not, and most people don&amp;#039;t seem to have this problem.  &amp;quot;I think this is the best day of my life,&amp;quot; Brittany Pollock, all of ten, said of meeting Florida governor Jeb Bush. Slightly less easily impressed was a recently surveyed group of eighteen-year-olds who, when asked to name the biggest event in their lives, came up with, in order of biggestness: (1) losing their virginity, (2) the fall of the Berlin Wall, (3) seeing their parents naked for the first time, and (4) Princess Diana&amp;#039;s death and getting their driver&amp;#039;s license (a tie). Now, we remember our deflowering as fondly as the next guy and were as traumatized as anyone by taking our driving test, but we think with time these young adults may find these events eclipsed by other sexual and motor-vehicle milestones--particularly in combination--and will over the years be able to completely suppress the memory of ever seeing their parents naked. Oh, wait. Oh, God.  There is something to be said for the perspective that comes with being too old to care. Chris Rock, for example, is this year&amp;#039;s funniest man alive and thus can be excused for thinking his life and career are the same thing. &amp;quot;I always dreamed of being the black guy on Saturday Night Live,&amp;quot; he said. &amp;quot;I was so happy when Lorne Michaels told me I was on the show. I haven&amp;#039;t been as happy since.&amp;quot; Bill Murray, meanwhile, has been there and is done with that. He recently stood on a golf course with Jane Pauley and said, &amp;quot;I look good in these clothes. These are polarized lenses. Nobody at work knows where I am. This is one of the best days of my life.&amp;quot; Then there is the clich\u00E9, perpetuated by politicians and celebrities, that the best day of their lives was the day their son or daughter was born. This, of course, comes off as transparent emotional claptrap to any person who has not had a child. What it comes down to, we suppose, is what, in the end, on our deathbed, at our crash site or crime scene, will be the last thing on our mind. Will it be of some moment still ahead of us, when we are accepting the Nobel prize or an Academy Award or an honor, not yet invented, bestowed in outer space? Or will our last living thought be of what an asshole we were at twelve? The catch we made, or the one that went through our legs? Looking down at the face of our baby, or up at the face of our mom? It&amp;#039;s all the same in the end. A moment of life, and we&amp;#039;ll miss it. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/entertainment/a69/esq1299-dec-esky/>