My Un-cool Guilty Pleasure

I am not cool. I never have been cool. I never will be cool. I once cried at school in the seventh grade. I had an understanding with the Principal in high school that if I left the cafeteria without permission it was because my Gerd was acting up and I needed to go vomit. I got in trouble in college for reading a book during a professor lecture. I am not cool.

Unfortunately, like everyone else on the planet Earth I try and convince others, sometimes even myself, that I am cool. In 5th grade I tried to play the part by getting a leather jacket. As about 75 pounds I sadly looked more like a kid wearing his older brother’s hand-me-downs than like James Dean. In 6th grade I decided I got a sweet pair of Shawn Kemp’s to wear. Somehow in my mind I decided that owning a pair of Shawn Kemp meant that I would be a baller at basketball even though I had never played. So I went down to the local YMCA, joined a team, showed up to practice, and was embarrassed to realize that I had to shoot granny style for free throws because I was so weak. The stories are endless, but they all have one conclusion. Not matter how hard I try I will never be cool.

Some people have “it”. You can’t describe “it” but they have it. They walk cool, they talk cool, they dance cool, they chew cool, they get shot cool, they date other cool people, they probably even poop cool. Obviously a lot of celebrities have this “it” quality, but there are many among us mere mortals that have it also. The rest of us strive for “it” and fail miserably.

And thus comes my guilty pleasure. I LOVE to catch people in the act of trying to be cool and failing miserably. I love it not because I am a mean spirited person. That would not be logical, because like I just told you I am also very un-cool but try hard to be. I love it because I feel like I see a little bit of humanity in them when they do this. I love remembering that we are all someone’s little son or daughter just grown up now and trying really hard to make others like us. I love remembering that no matter how hard, sexy, funny, or cool we act deep down we are trying to hide the fact that we are insecure people that are seeking approval. The Christian in me loves it because it reminds me that no matter how hard we act like we are doing good on our own, we are failing miserably at it.

I have two examples of this that are my favorite. The first is solely for girls. Let me paint you a picture. You are out to dinner with your friends and you notice an attractive, young girl sitting across the restaurant dining with her boyfriend. She clearly spent hours curling her hair so it has that perfect bounce, putting on makeup so it has that look that seems as if it took no effort but actually took tons of effort, she is wearing an outfit that is probably the fourth or fifth one she tried on. She looks great and you are happy for her that she probably is winning that guy over easily. You watch as she dabs at her lips with her napkin and excuses herself to the ladies room. She stands up to walk to the restroom and…….wobbles across the restaurant. Yes, I LOVE it when girls try and wear high heels and fail miserably at pulling it off. Heels serve no purpose other than looking sexy/cool, so when a girl wears them and it has the complete opposite effect that she was going for I just eat it up.

My next example applies to both guys and girls, but most typically to young teenagers around 16 years old. If there is one thing that many, many iconic movie stars have in common whether it is in real life or simply while portraying a character it is that they smoke a cigarette really really cool. You could be walking out of your grandfather’s funeral who died of lung cancer, and happen to see Brad Pitt smoking in Fight Club on a passing TV and I guarantee for at least one split second you will think he looks freakin’ awesome. So, while smoking might be one of the dumbest things on the entire planet to do I understand why a teenager whose brain is basically retarded would think smoking is a great idea. The part that is hilarious is that NO ONE looks cool when learning to smoke. Even after the teenager gets used to the taste of smoke, they still don’t know how to hold it right, don’t know how inhale right, don’t know how to exhale right, don’t know how to pack them right. And, then even if they learn how do all that they still look like a person not finished with puberty trying really hard to look older. My best example of this was from a few months ago. I was driving through town and passed a girl who was smoking a cigarette in her car. But due to the cold she barely had the window cracked. When she went to ash out the window the entire red hot ember decided not to fly out of the car, but instead directly into the seat behind her. Again she was trying REALLY hard to look cool but somehow managed to look extremely uncool in the process.

While I do enjoy my guilty pleasure it has one very serious side effect. Because I enjoy watching others fail at being cool so much, I am constantly paranoid that others are doing the same to me. So, when you see me out on the town wearing my high heels and smoking my menthol cigs just turn the other way and make sure I don’t see you giggling.