It's Not Easy Being This Not Cool

Okay. I’ve faced facts. I am not cool.

People (under the age of 20) kept telling me that, but I didn’t want to believe them.

I was sure I was cool! Hip. With it. All that! (Good lord, and to think people actually talk that way!)

But the evidence establishing my non-coolness kept stacking up.

I don’t paint my toenails. Or my fingernails. And I don’t understand why anyone else would, either.

I don’t use mousse in my hair; and if I eat mousse, it looks far more like hearty stew than light pudding.

I didn’t know there were shaving creams for men; and shaving creams for women--or that there was anything wrong with a girl’s legs smelling like Gillette. Last time I raised my calf to my nose, it smelled just fine. The occasion is imprinted on my mind, in fact; due to the excruciating charley horse that crippled me afterwards.

I thought “product” was a result, and had no idea it was actually hair goop. “I FINALLY have some product!” said the teenager after arriving home from a shopping trip with her girlfriend (called ‘BFF’ by the cool crowd).

Whatever!

And then, there was today’s business with the gentleman caller. He came over to the house and brought a movie to watch. With my daughter. In the living room. On the couch.

Now…it was hot this afternoon. It was 85 if it was a degree. We have a large sofa, a love seat, an over-stuffed chair, a recliner and a Canadian glider in the living room. The room easily seats eight. Easily! It made absolutely no sense for the both of them to sit on the same piece of furniture. None whatsoever. There were three vacant seats, each equally comfortable and made soft by an excess of cat hair. There was no reason for the girl and the gentleman caller to sit on the same couch--and certainly, not on the same HALF of the couch.

And I said so.

Apparently, that’s not cool.

There was also no reason for them to go for a walk, either. We live in the woods. Once you’ve seen one tree, you’ve seen them all, right? Sometimes you can’t even see the forest around here, for all the trees we’ve got that look identical. So there was no earthy reason for them to go for a walk. Not without the girl’s younger brother AND the visiting labra-doodle in tow, anyway.

The four of them had a lovely time on their walk…but I rated a look that said I was far, far, far from cool as I handed her the leash and pushed her brother out the door behind them.

Apparently, it’s cool to wear jeans that are so tight you can ping quarters off them, but I had to mention the snug-fitting apparel before finding that out.

The jeans are cool. Mentioning them in the same sentence with quarters—not cool.

I have been informed that it’s also not cool to hang out my upstairs bedroom window saying, “Sheesh! How long does it take to walk someone to his car, anyway? Time to go home, kiddo! Chop, chop!”

Way not cool. Waaaay! I’m so ‘not cool’ that my youngest son, before he even has any serious interest in a particular girl, has informed me that he’ll never invite one over to our house. He says I’d scar the poor thing for life.

He exaggerates, of course. I might be ‘way not cool’, but I’m harmless. My intentions are good. And really, I can’t be held responsible for my lack of coolness. If my girl had shown up downstairs in baggy jeans and sweatshirt, with legs that smelled like Gillette, and limp, product-free hair, unpainted toes and fingers, and with a plan to stay inside the house and ALONE inside her personal space (five feet in all directions would have been sufficient), I would have shown those teenagers exactly how cool I could be.

Scarred for life? Hah! They ought to try having MY job. It’s not easy being this ‘not cool’. I’m exhausted…