I’m So Cool — Too Bad I’m A Loser.
A couple of days ago, I found myself slipping. Bemoaning the lot in our military life that’s landed us in the same place for so long. I was doing something meaningless — dropping flyers and a lockbox off at a new listing, driving through the usual drudgery of pawn shops and Asian markets and the suffocating stench of fried food and giant southern truck exhaust. I was headed west, and I knew that if I kept going, I would eventually race along the south side of the military training lands, where they shoot stuff and drop stuff and fall from the sky like little turds from a bird only they never land on anyone’s head.
Unless, of course, they plan it that way.
But I didn’t keep going, because I had things to do. A right turn to make, into a tiny pocket of suburbia tucked just off of the main road and into a deluded fog of quiet seclusion and community togetherness. I tapped my brakes, and that’s when I saw it. Due west, straight ahead, the biggest bird in my sky at that moment — probably a C-17 with a 170 foot wingspan and 4 bulky engines carrying its unlikely hulk above the tree line over the rise ahead. And then they started dropping, the turds from the bird, only way, way cooler. They seemed random and graceful the way they fell, one after another after another, then pop pop pop went their parachutes almost immediately, seeming precariously close to one another and then falling, falling and from this distance looking like so many tiny Mary Poppins silhouettes gliding down across the setting sun and over the London skyline comprised, in this case, of the tallest Longleaf Pines.
I can’t find a credit for this photo. If it’s yours, please let me know.
It was stunning.
And, no matter how many times I witness this surprise display of Paratrooping prowess, it will never get old. Never.
It will never not be cool to me.
Which is comforting, because in this life, it’s so easy for things to fall off of our radars, whether because someone tells us it’s no longer cool to like these things, or we outgrow them ourselves. And sometimes it feels like this race — like we drop one trend, clear the overalls and jean skirts from our wardrobes, and just a short 10 years later, we’re filling it up again. Denim, denim everywhere!
Doesn’t it get tiring? This constant struggle to look the right way, say the right thing, be the right person?
I mean, really. If we all loved the same things, there would never be anything new to discover. And stores would constantly be sold out of yoga pants. And we wouldn’t procreate because Scott Bairstow is taken.
And I realized that day that to me, no matter what anyone else tries to say, these things will never stop being cool:
The Toadies.
Absolut Vodka ads.
Harry Potter books.
Bangs.
Geography.
Billy Joel.
(Every voice heard in this song is his. The only instrumental accompaniment is a bass guitar. Tell me that’s not awesome.)
The Tracker.
So. What’s your list?
*Thanks once again to the Barenaked Ladies for providing the post title. I couldn’t do it without you.
Comments
I second bangs and wish to add 80s slang, fuzzy slippers, concert T-shirts, Harry Belafonte (“Jump in the Line” makes me shimmy around the house want to wear fruit on my head), drinking games past age 25, and all late-90’s rock/alternative bands get a free pass, too. Suck it, haters. :)
*and* want to wear fruit on my head. I get so passionate sometimes I forget how to form sentences.
Haha, I was still picking’ up what you were dropping. And I totally agree with you on the drinking games (though the rules should be more lax since my hangovers are significantly worse), and 90’s bands. And yeah… I still use 80’s slang because it’s totally rad.
Please, please, please tell me that overalls have not started filling up your closets again, because I might have to stop thinking you’re the cool girl that I would be if I hadn’t chosen the kid path.
Things that will forever be cool in my book – Beer that tastes like beer(not wine coolers, or malt drinks, or trendy beer that tastes like pumpkin or cherries or whatever,) and looks like beer in the glass. Concert t-shirts. Leather jackets(yes, I love animals, but I love me some leather, too.) Scrabble. The Ramones preferably blasted while dance cleaning. Boy, I’m dorky. Oh, well.
Nope. In fact, I’m ashamed to say that I never even got on the overall cool wagon to begin with! I did own one pair of shorts overalls in middle school, but my mom wouldn’t let me wear them with one strap hanging down, so I didn’t wear them at all. ;)
Yessss love me some good beer — especially in a pilsner glass. Something amber, preferably. Concert t-shirts are the best, and I almost included leather jackets in the list, but I didn’t want to deal with any backlash.
Nice list!
Wow… Living somewhat near Lewis-McChord so that we shop and visit in the area, we often get to see those giant and awesome planes that look to fat and bulky to ever stay in the air, but have never seen paratroopers (or other turdish things of any sort) fall from them! In this same vein, I was awed by the performance and fly-overs of the Blue Angels when my brother graduated from the Naval Academy and could never get tired of or less awed by them.
I agree with Lax about the beer… and my all-time, oh-so-cool car is the Mercedes-Benz 230 SL Roadster from about 1963-64… I had to look up the name and year… Before this I only referred to them as “those cool, little, old Mercedes hard-top convertibles.”
Other things: Cary Grant and Jimmy Stewart. Impressionist paintings, Kandinsky paintings, and Frank Lloyd Wright architecture. Music: Chicago, Keith Whitley, Glenn Miller, Clint Black’s Delectrified album, and YoYo Ma playing JS Bach. The Olympics are always cool, and I really, really miss “Wide World of Sports.”
Oh, my… It’s “TOO fat and bulky”… not “to.” I’m a grammarholic.
Isn’t it crazy how those things stay up there? I actually decided I wanted to be a military pilot after my high school German teacher made us watch a Blue Angels video in class one day (he was one of those teachers who kind of hated teaching). Unfortunately, after talking to a Navy recruit for an hour on the phone, I found out I couldn’t do it due to my eyesight. Oh well… their loss. ;)
Nice car!! And Cary Grand and Jimmy Steward? Yes, please. They just don’t make ’em like that anymore…