The Art of Not Being Cool

 

By SirWilho

 

Long ago when I was a young lad I had a goal to become cool.  Fonzie-like cool to be exact.  My school locker would be stuck and with the absolute knowledge that I possessed coolness, I would give it a wack and expect the door to fly open.  After the 50th time in trying this, I concluded no ice flowed in my veins and the only coolness I had were the feelings girls bestowed upon me.

Brother Bishop was cool, even for a grease monkey.  The flowing feathered hair and a Farrah Fawcett t-shirt sealed the deal.  I’m pretty sure he even dated a senior when he was only a freshman, now that’s cool.  He had the ‘dog chasing a car and car stops now what to do’ problem, but the several years of moving toward his GED educated him just fine.

I had no other option in the quest of coolness than to reevaluate my situation and personal self.  First, analyze the looks.  Hmmm, my teeth had more curve and curl than my hair, except for the persistent cow-lick jutting from my upper right forehead that no amount of water or spit could keep down. The Austin Powers look wasn’t in fashion so flashing the smile and running my hands through silken locks were out.

Jumping off-topic for a second I can’t help but remember younger brother Sprout when his eye teeth started popping out.  He had this right wolf tooth jumping straight forward rather than down.

Braces for any of us was out of the question due to our financial situation in the family so my mom came up with a solution.  “Russell, rather than looking like a future Unicorn, keep your finger on that snaggle-tooth and keep pushing down,” mom would say.  Us brothers had a lot of fun telling on him, “Mommm, Sprout’s not pushing down his fang,” we would cry.

Ok, back to the issue of not being cool.  Looks were out so I thought my superior intellect and savvy way with words were the answer.  It came to me as an epiphany, ‘become a girls best friend’ was my solution.  I jumped into every covey of girls and soon knew the business of every person, dog, cat, senior citizen and adult in Iron River.  This wealth of information gave me power and I spewed out cattiness that even Desperate Housewives would frown upon.

At this moment, I have to implore youth in pursuit of coolness:  KEEP YOUR FLIPPIN YAP SHUT.  The ‘Girls Best Friend’, idea doesn’t work.  I repeat, doesn’t work.  Try listening instead and keep your thoughts in your head.

Two ideas down and I am no further ahead.  In desperation I resorted to my dressing.  Poverty was one step above our financial state so I had to make do with what I had.

My Aunt sent me a pair of Levi’s and I would wear these with chest out and head high.  People would notice, I said to myself, and notice they did.

Auntie must have shopped at St. Vinnies and this must have been where the Levi Company gave away the pants that didn’t suit standards.  The pants I received from her were somewhat flawed, the zipper was a little crooked and two inches off center so when I unzipped only the hernia scar was revealed.  One leg was a little longer but not noticeable if I walked kind of tilted.

The cool thing about Levi’s were its tags.  They had a little red one in the back and the big leather one on the belt ring.  In the case of my free pants, both of these tags were haphazardly cut off.  I wore a thick belt to cover the partially cut leather tag and hoped nobody would notice the little red one being snipped off.

Kids are cruel and very observant.  It took about a half an hour of my chest out and head high for my peers to notice something different about me.  “See,” I said to myself, “I’m now cool with my cool pants”.  “Hey, ummm, Bill, I see you got new pants,” said Flash.  “Levi’s,” the new cool me says.  “You sure about that?”  The gig was up and coolness lost.  “You are like school on a Saturday,” said Fat Albert.  “How’s that?” says me.

“No class.”

Every time Coolness came close to me, it quickly vanished.  Brother Bishop, Butchy Chreest and myself were going for a swim at Chicaugoan Lake and we pretended to be The Man From Atlantis, from the sitcom TV show.  In order to swim like Atlantis man you had to thrust your torso up and down very quickly in the water.  We never did swim as fast as The Man From Atlantis but it sure wasn’t from lack of effort.

I stated earlier that we grew up without much money so we didn’t have the fancy swimsuits with the built in liner.  We wore loose shorts and tighty-whities underneath.  Bloomers were a communal thing in our house so we all shared, this included Pappy’s Fruit of the Looms.  Pappy’s underwear can be best described as ‘Ol Yellers’.  The elastic band was stretched out, very droopy and with a color that didn’t fit into ROY G BIV.

The day we were pretending to be The Man From Atlantis was a day I happened to be wearing Pappy’s bloomers.  So there we were, twisting, thrusting, flipping around underwater in our attempt to swim like Atlantis Man when exhaustion set in.  We called it quits and headed toward the pavilion at the park.  Our trio sauntered with teeny pectorals flexed in the feeble attempt to impress girls.  Our friend, Frankie Burns, was sitting with a few girls so I thought it would be cool to degrade him in front of them, thus gaining the advantage in courtship.  The girls eyes danced in delight with my wit and charm, nothing but big smiles and giggles came from their mouth.  I was Cool.

We walked by them and they were in awe.  I impressed them so much, my pectoral’s got a little bigger, head was held higher and shoulders were out.  I felt some seaweed touching the back of my knee’s and turned my head to take a look.  Evidently, the Atlantis Man swimming made Pappy’s bloomers water-logged and stretched so it wasn’t seaweed that I felt behind me from each leg it was his ‘Ol Yellers’ drooping way down.

Not Cool.  When I turned to figure out the seaweed issue and then realized it wasn’t seaweed I glanced up at the girls who sat intently staring, giggling and smiling.

Trying to be cool wasn’t cool I surmised and gave up the quest.