Playing It Safe

          I suppose at 40 I should be playing it safe. I should be buying my clothes at Costco, cheap Dockers, sensible shoes and those cute little cargo shorts that suggest just a hint of rebellion, not the cool ones that you make out of old military pants. I can't do it! I've tried in the past but I always ended up feeling molded and put in place. I know I'm out of place when I go to pick up my kids from school wearing my hair slicked back or hanging in my face with my black Ray Bans and old engineer boots on. I must admit that I get a charge out of the expressions I get from other fathers who are picking up their kids or from the mothers who secretly wish their men looked as cool as me (ha). Hell, even the kids at school look at me with some sort of expression that rests somewhere between "weird" and "coolness". I know my own kids think I'm cool as they always show me off to their friends. I freely admit that I am afraid of looking and feeling 40 but I have always refused to "fit in". I don't go out of my way to look different, it just happens, always has. I guess that comes from having a mother and father who raised me to be myself and never let what everyone else around me was doing or wearing dictate who I should be or what I should look like. Maybe it's the fact that I spend more time pouring my mind into outdated books or writing poetry, that I don't give myself up to what's happening in the world of fashion. I'll play it safe when I'm dead...maybe.