The Side Effects Of Cool

THE SIDE EFFECTS OF COOL

A Short, Short Story by Willys Watson

A man of sixty was leaning up against the fence running along the bicycle path in Balboa Park. Although he was wearing skates he hadn’t stopped because he was tired. In fact he was in great shape for an old fart. He had stopped to study and enjoy some of the Sunday afternoon traffic on the path.

Along came three young people, all in their early twenties, each wearing in-line skates. One was a woman. The other two were men.

As they approached the older man they must have collectively thought he was a relic from the distant past, and a comic one at that. The two guys snickered. The woman smirked. The older man simply smiled, then asked:

"Am I that funny looking?"

The three younger people stopped in front of him. Realizing the older man had heard her the woman actually seemed a little embarrassed.

"No, we, er ... we just don’t see many people wearing those old skates anymore" the first young man explained.

"No, I guess you don’t. I wonder why?" he replied.

"Well, they’re sorta - sorta - ," the young woman started to add.

"Too old fashioned? Too uncool? Too untrendy?" he replied as he finished her sentence for her.

‘We didn’t mean any disrespect. It’s just that, well, you know- " the second young man offered.

"You sorta remind me of my grandpa, only you’re not that old," the young woman said while giggling.

"Yeah, but seriously now, why do you still use those things? They make you look older than you probably are," the first young man sincerely wondered.

"You really want to know? Seriously?"

"Yeah, sure," the second young man stated, though it seemed he was being more polite that actually curious.

　

The older man’s answer was to step out onto the wide bicycle path sidewalk, then take a quick jump start. Then, using his unfashionable skates, he went into a spin, then did a double jump, then performed a reverse spin, another double jump, then some quick dance steps, finally skating backwards towards the gawking younger skaters.

"Really cool," the impressed young women exclaimed.

"What can you guys do with your skates?" the older man asked them.

"Uh, I - uh, you can’t, uh - do anything like, uh, that with these, uh, in-line skates." the first young man admitted.

‘Yeah, uh, I sorta tried a few things, but, uh, they’re not, uh, designed to, uh - "

"Hey, in-line skates are cool. That’s all they’re meant to be. Just cool." the young woman pronounced, defending their reasons for using them.

"Okay, they’re cool because someone said they were. Style over substance. Why not?" the older man responded.

Before they could reply he skated away, doing several spits, jumps and spins as he did and while doing so his routine drew applause from a group of joggers passing by.

"Screw him. Screw that crazy old fart. He don’t know s**t," the first man responded when the older skater was twenty yards up the path.

"Yeah, he didn’t prove s**t.

"But these are all I need to - " the young woman stated while looking down at her own in-line skates, " - all I wanted was to - " then stopped to tug at the sleeve of her boyfriend’s arm, telling him, " Honey, let’s go. I don’t - don’t feel like - like skating now.

"Sure, Baby, I’m bored anyway," he said, pecking her on the cheek, then suggested," Let’s head over to Starbucks.