On Wanting to be Cool

By Patti Beckert

There I was, sitting by the side of the road on a steel bar, swinging my barefoot feet and acting all cool and shit and hoping that just one of my friends would come by and say something to me like “Wow, you look just like a hippie.” But when that didn’t happen--after what seemed about an hour or so of just sitting there and trying to be that cool hippie chick--I gave up and went over to my friend Christine’s house to watch the Monkees, then went home to do homework, forgetting all about being cool because, after all, I did have a life.