Not Cool Enough

March 7, 2019 - By gainingsomeground

Chris and I celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary this month. In honor of that illustrious event, I give you a little Throwback Thursday to the early days in our dating history. Here goes.

I attended college in northern California, and during my senior year, I had a ritual. About once a month I would wander downtown to the local record store. I’d sample some of the featured CDs and, if I liked the sound, I’d buy one or two. Which is how I came to own All Lights Off, by a band called Rearview Mirror. Although the sound was a little edgier that my usual listening fare, the CD quickly became my absolute favorite. It was also the first time I had ever really understood the meaning of “music therapy.” If I was ever really upset about something, just listening to that CD could instantly take away my angst. This was in 2002.

Flash-forward four years. I’m riding in the car with Chris and his sister, on our way to his mother’s lake house in Iowa. His sister is sitting in the backseat, flipping through the book of CDs that I had brought for the trip. (And YES, I realize this dates me). She pauses before she moves on to the next page, and Chris interrupts.

“Wait,” he says, “flip that back a second. What is that CD in the middle row there?”

I glance at my book and realize instantly it’s my copy of All Lights Off.

“Oh,” I say to Chris, with a smirk, “you aren’t cool enough to know that band.”

I mean, why would I expect a guy from Iowa whom I met in Arizona to be familiar with some random CD I picked up four years ago in California? But for some reason unbeknownst to me, Chris and his sister immediately bust into laughter.

“I’m not cool enough?” he asks. “REALLY?”

“Um, yeah.”

Now it’s his turn to smirk. “So, remember that good friend of mine we met in Minneapolis last weekend? And remember when we gave the street artist twenty bucks so that my friend could play his bongo drums?”