Lessons in coolness

When your commute involves multiple modes of travel, as mine does, it is very important to be able to respond quickly to any change in situation. You want to appear to be a smooth, suave, adaptable individual. You may never reach the level of suaveness achieved by the tourist I observed waving a rubber chicken in the air as a way of locating a lost family member, but you may find success in some small measure.


One day, for example, I realized that I was headed toward a nonworking escalator in the subway station. This is easy to do, as there is an epidemic of nonworking escalators in the subway stations, thanks to a USDA regulation that a certain percentage of escalators be in nonworking mode at all times. Their thinking is that America has a big problem with laziness, and if America will not take care of its laziness problem on its own, then the government will kill ALL public escalators. (Attention federal contractors: You are urged to bid on this.)

Seeing the nonworking escalator looming ahead, I quickly changed direction and headed toward another, working escalator, as if I had planned to use that one all along. I am so smooth and suave and adaptable, I thought.

As I neared the bottom of the escalator, I surveyed the platform and thought, Yes, I am so smooth and suave and adaptable that I am now on the wrong platform, heading toward a train going in the wrong direction.

When your suaveness factor is heading into negative territory, it is important to not lose your composure. So rather than turn around and head back up a nearby escalator, thereby alerting everyone nearby to my unsuaveness, I kept walking. I walked suavely, as if I had, all along, planned to walk the entire length of the train, up the escalators at the other end, and down again on the other side.

My resolve to regain a smooth, suave composure deepened with my little trek through the station, and by the time I exited the subway at my next stop, I was level-headed enough to AGAIN use the wrong escalator.

I looked around furtively, but no one had been paying attention to my faux pas. THEY were all busy being suave and cool.

I thought perhaps listening to my iPod would add to the illusion of coolness. I'm sure it would have, if only the earphones would have stayed in my ears instead of falling out and swaying around like an dangling telephone cord in a public phone booth, forcing me to keep putting them back in as if they were defective hearing aids. Definitely not cool-image inducing.

And just mentioning public phone booths, I fear, has reduced my suaveness factor some more.