It's Over, Stop Trying

We all reach a point in our lives when we're simply not cool anymore. We can try to cling as long as we possibly can, but there is a moment we can look back on with absolute clarity and realize, that's when it ended. I personally, have yet to reach that crossroad, so I'm certainly not speaking from experience. I'm actually cooler now than I ever was in high school. Don't burst my little bubble here people, this is what gets me through the hot flashes. There are people we encounter everyday that make us think "This poor deluded soul really hasn't a clue that he's not cool at all." This delusion of coolness is generally expressed vehicularly. My personal favorites can be seen in my town, there is the Ford Taurus with the flames painted on the front (I hold out hope that this is whimsy, not delusion) and the guy in the minivan who insists on cranking the speakers I suspect have replaced the third row seating. You drive a minivan? It was over for you the moment you signed your name on the title...of the MINIVAN. The same rules apply when you're driving a car that was cool as hell when you bought it (15 years ago) but have allowed it to deteriorate into a mere shadow of its former self. I give you the dent-riddled, grime and rust encrusted, windows duct-taped Camaro I saw this afternoon. This very car was idling at the red light next to me and as my eldest and I watched with a mixture of fascinated horror and frank disbelief the thundering, incomprehensible bass blasting from the back caused pieces of snow, ice and a full layer of the rusty shell vibrated off and fell into the street. I admit to worrying about the fate of the occupants of the car, as I strongly suspect the rust was indeed the very glue holding this once proud miracle of modern manufacturing together. It was a bit like seeing a Triple Crown winner pulling a hay cart.
Similar rules apply to clothing choices. Low rise jeans should probably not ever be worn by anyone that has given birth more than once. Tube tops don't look good on ANYONE, they were never cool and always trashy! There are A LOT of tattoos that should never have been sketched on a cocktail napkin and certainly never permanently applied to a human body (for examples: www.ugliesttattoos.com ) and you won't ever wonder if there is a limit to tacky or gross ideas people are willing to not only express, but advertise daily! Tattoos are cool, many are VERY cool, but a whole lot are just nasty and/or sad. I can't help but wonder what happens when the heavily tattooed among us reach that crossroad: "It's over and I'm not cool but there's no way I can't look like I'm not desperately clinging..." They're stuck forever with whatever it was they thought was cool when they were twenty. I think back to what was cool when I was twenty and there's absolutely nothing I can think of from that time period that I'd be willing to wear, carry around or do every day since then. This is probably why I still don't have a tattoo. There's just nothing I've found that I want to look at every day until I'm old and wrinkled (don't even go there, tattoos on the heavily wrinkled...eew).
I hope I'll be cool enough to realize when I'm not cool anymore and give it up gracefully. Or I won't and I'll paint flames AND get huge speakers in my minivan.