I confess that I’ve never been a particularly bright guy but
it seems that I’ve spent an awful lot of time wondering about things other
people seem to accept. Over the years I’ve often started noticing things that
everyone else seemed to already know. Many times I’ve wondered if other people
feel this way or if my name was left off of the big distribution list in the
sky…there must be some reason I always miss the memo.
When I was in elementary school I think I was absent the day
that they held an assembly and told everyone that boys had a say in how our
hair was cut. My old man had always just taken me to the barbershop and told
them to give a flattop. I happily got my haircut and the barber gave me
bubblegum. I never thought about it because it was a win-win situation…until I
found out I had missed a memo.
The other boys at school were wearing their hair longer and
teasing me for still wearing a flattop….Hell, I never even got the memo telling
us we were supposed to care about haircuts! It seems my dad never got the memo
either because the first time I told him I was going to grow my hair out he
took me to the barbershop, had them shave my head and kept my bubblegum. That
really sucked.
I’m sure I was absent the day they put out the word that it
was OK to like girls. My friends and I had avoided girls like the plague forever
then, out of the clear blue my buddy Charlie was holding hands with a girl at
recess! This really threw me for a loop because Charlie was one of the cool
kids and if he liked a girl you can bet your butt it was cool….Charlie was that
kind of cool.
In Junior High (for those of you under 40, Junior High is
what we used to call Middle School) I missed the memo that explained that the
word “party” could be used as a verb. I was labeled irreversibly uncool after
this conversation took place in the hall at school:
My friend: “We’re going to party with James this weekend.”
Me: “Cool, James is having a party this weekend!”
My friend: “No, we’re just going to party, man.”
Me: “Will there be cake? Should I bring something? Where
does James live?”
My friend: “Forget it dude, you’re hair’s too short anyway.
Don’t tell anyone I told you.”
Me: “I wouldn’t have come anyway…those stupid party hats are
lame.”
I ate lunch alone after that until we moved; eighth grade
can be brutal.
Somehow I completely missed out on the lesson that women
speak an entirely different language after puberty. When we were younger if
your girlfriend was mad at you she’d call you a jerk and punch you. It was
always very clear when you did something wrong. Then they took the girls out of
the classroom and taught them secret woman powers while they showed us old
football movies…after that nothing was ever the same again.
The first time I asked my high school girlfriend, “What’s
wrong?” and she answered, “Nothing” I actually believed her! No one had told me
that from puberty on, when a girls says nothing is wrong that means something
is definitely wrong and when she says nothing at all that means you're in deep
shit but when she talks constantly about what’s wrong with you that means
everything is alright! I paid dearly for missing that memo for a long time;
right up until I was…oh I don’t know…what day is it?
We live in an ever-changing world and I’m always a step or
two behind. I missed memo after memo; I thought things were keen when it turns
out they were groovy, by the time I figured that out groovy things were boss
then boss things were cool. For a while it was great to be hot, then it was
even cool to be hot and, while it was no longer cool to smoke, it was both hot
and cool to be smokin’. My head hurts.
These days I wear what I want to, get my hair cut when I
remember to and I haven’t seen a memo in decades. I still don’t understand
women and I never did get to party with James…but that’s cool with me.
No comments:
Post a Comment