How You Can Be Cool

Anytime you get on an escalator, you’ve got two choices:  either you lean to the side and just enjoy the ride or you frantically run up it like a spaz.  It’s pretty obvious which choice a cool person must make.

Granted, if you’re cool you’ve probably got places to be and appointments to keep.  Think of the escalator ride as your little oasis amid the madness of your day.  Bust a lean and reflect on all the cool things you’ve done today and all the cool things you’re about to do.  Catch your breath, read an ad on the wall, invent a backstory for the couple in front of you.

Look, if you madly sprint up or down the escalator, you’re going to get sweaty.  Cool people don’t sweat.

This little stunt is almost too perfect:

You take your phone, scroll through your contacts and choose your intended target.  For the purposes of this example, let’s call him Marco.  Ring him up, turn on some ambient background music and put your phone in a sock on the coffee table.  When you hear Marco on the line, that’s when it’s time to start weaving your spell.  Begin speaking out loud.

“I gotta introduce you to my friend Marco sometime.  That guy’s awesome, you’ll love him.  I do.  He’s hilarious…just a good dude, you know?  Actually, you know what the coolest thing about Marco is, is that he….”  CLICK.

That’s it.  Next time you need someone to help you move, Marco’s your man.

What’s truly cool about the staged pocket call is not only have you managed to manipulate your friend into liking you more, but, even if your friend does find out what you’ve done, even they’ll have to admit that it was a pretty cool little scheme.  Brilliant in it’s simplicity.

Everybody should try this at least once in their life, it’s pretty awesome.  This is how it should play out:

You buy a bouquet of flowers and just walk down the street with them.  At some point, inevitably, an older lady is going to jokingly say, “Oh, are those for me?”  You immediately respond with, “Oh, yeah, there you are.  I’ve been looking all over for you.  Here you go.”  You hand them the flowers and you walk away.  To that lady, you are now the coolest person in the world.

The best time of year to do this is around Valentine’s day because it’s a bit more sentimental for everyone.  Be careful, though.  This is when florists jack up the price of roses.

There’s nothing quite as gratifying as stumping your friends with a clever sports trivia question.  You can almost hear the hamster wheel in their heads groaning under the strain of thought as they stare off into space, almost willing the answers to come to them.

As satisfying as the initial question is, however, the truly thrilling moment is when your friends finally get the answer and explode into a flurry of cheers, high-5’s and “Oh, how did I forget that?!”.  You then get to look them square in the eyes and proudly say, “Well done! I knew you’d get there eventually”.

For your consideration, here are two great sports trivia questions to get you started:

1. There are currently nine teams out of the four major sports leagues (NHL, NBA, NFL and MLB) whose team name does not end in an “s”.  Who are they?  Answer is here.

2. There are six pairs of  currently active teams in the four major sports leagues who share the same team name (ie. Edmonton Oilers/Houston Oilers, but of course Houston Oilers are not currently active).  Who are they?  Answer is here.

Bullies suck.  Dissin’ em is awesome.  There are few things cooler then coming up with the perfect comeback at the perfect time.  What could be more satisfying then knocking a bully right off their high-horse and then watching them get all tangled up in their stirrups on the way down?

One of the coolest things you can do is to dis a bully when they’re bullying somebody else.  Imagine you see the manager at your local coffee shop yelling at one of his baristas while you wait.  Your response: “Easy there, Dad.  What, did your daughter break curfew again?”,  or, “OK Gandalf, we get it, We Shall Not Pass!”

Take That Bullies!!

If you’re going to reach the pinnacle of cool and become a pop culture icon, you gotta have a catch phrase.  This is just basic marketing but you’ve got to give people a wicked slogan to remember you by.

What follows is a short list of catch-phrase opportunities, followed by an example.  Feel free to try them out.

Greeting a friend: Yo, what’s the Headline?!

Leaving a party: It’s Pumpkin Time!!

When someone asks you, “Are you sure about that?”: I’ve read the scroll!

When someone says to you, “Dude, you look nervous.”: I feel like a 13 year old boy in a lingerie shop.