Cool Breeze

and pet peeves

In the legendary anti-establishment film Cool Hand Luke, Paul Newman¹ plays the role of an inmate who doesn’t violently or aggressively disobey those who abuse their power. Instead, he is identified for his calmness and lack of action, living out the idea that “sometimes nothing can be a pretty cool hand”.

I watched this movie for the first time when I was in high school, mostly motivated by the fact I had been listening a lot to the emo band Cool Hand Luke². I can’t claim to have fully understood all of the nuances of the movie or Newman’s performance, because I was not very cool and I have never liked salads. I was a wildly emotional, reactive teen who had never played it cool even once in my life. I was definitely not a cool person.

Fast forward several years, and I found myself at a job where my coworkers had started calling me Cool Breeze because I didn’t seem to be bothered by anything. I carried myself much differently than I used to. Granted, they were only my coworkers for about two months before I got a better job elsewhere, so they didn’t have time to get to know just how neurotic and difficult I could truly be, but that worked out just fine.

The point is that I had started to understand in my early adult life that there was, in fact, a benefit to playing it cool and not over-reacting to things. It should go without saying that even though I know playing it cool tends to lead to better outcomes, it’s still very hard for me to fight my impulsive urge to smack somebody upside the head when they irritate me. I am, of course, a deeply regular person who does still tend to get bothered by things.

So while I do pride myself on the steps I’ve taken in my journey toward actual self-control³, it seems appropriate to admit to things that still do bother me immensely.

Most of the things that irk me, as I look back over my life, come from the way that people interact with other people. Gossiping, selfishness, or condescension toward other people that will make me immediately see red. There are likely times in which that reaction could be justified, but everybody acts poorly to another person from time to time in their life so I find it hard to allow two wrongs to make a right.

Drama fits in there as well. Even going back to my teenage days, when my friends wanted to partake in our God-given right to teenage drama, I would roll my eyes. It flat out annoyed me, as if I was living in a different stage of life than those around me. When drama emerged, I would sarcastically mock the situation, and as you can imagine, it made me super popular. Remember: despite wanting to play it cool, I have never once actually been thought of as “cool”.⁴

Another thing that wear on me is complaining without wanting a solution. Whining like that is almost always focused on either something insignificant or something that the complainer has no interest in fixing themselves. I will always appreciate a person who pairs a complaint with an offer to help address the issue because it means they actually care about the issue and aren’t begging for attention.

But you know the biggest irk of all? Is the fact that I, like most people, get bothered by people acting in these aforementioned ways because (as you can tell from this post) I act that way all the time.

If we’re honest with ourselves, aren’t the things we find annoying about other people the things about ourselves that we dislike? And so I say all of this to remind myself that these very human moments are moments that we all share, and my annoyance with other peoples actions should always result in me evaluating my own response to them.

And thus, I should always try to keep a cool head.

Now all of that being said, I’ve always found it difficult to answer whenever I’m asked about pet peeves that I have. Whatever I’ve talked about earlier are big, human qualities that may or may not be rooted in real life things. But a pet peeve is a minor annoyance, right? By definition, it is something small that bothers us more than it would bother other people, and when I tell you that my biggest pet peeve is the one surefire thing that will make me lose my mind, I mean it. I have no control over myself.

Here it is. You ready for the one thing that will make me irrationally upset every single time? It’s when people say the word “verse” when they actually mean the word “versus”.

That’s it, but dangit that’s huge to me. They are two very different words that mean wildly different things! If you are talking about two teams about to compete against each other and you use the term that refers to a form of writing arranged in a specific pattern, I will want to jackslap you.

So there you go. If you want to see me lose my cool in a moments notice, say “verse” instead of “versus”.⁵

Or just ask my wife to identify the countless things that bother me that I refuse to admit to myself. She’ll gladly let you in on the fun of pushing my buttons and keeping me humble.

1. The salad dressing guy

2. As far as I know, they never made a salad dressing

3. Or at least faking it

4. If you’ve seen the show Community, specifically season 3, episode 15, "Origins of Vampire Mythology", you’ll remember the side character Blade. He was a carnival worker and ex-boyfriend of the character Brita who had a bizarre magnetism about him. He was unbothered by things and his nonchalance drove Jeff Winger insane. Turns out, Blade was nonchalant because he had a head injury that prevented him from feeling shame, and therefore his lack of care toward what others thought of him was caused by something that would also prevent him from really doing much more in life than running a carnival game.

Anyway, that’s basically how I actually was in high school and college. People tended to like me even though I never gave them any reason to.

5. Or turn on a song by Hardy. I hate his music more than nearly anything else on this earth