In a cool, cool world, everything is wonderful.

Young adults gather with their friends, go fishing, stand around firepits, and hang out in basements playing pool and poker and guzzling sodas. They go to the beach for the weekend, with no worries other than who’s driving and where they’re sleeping. They go back to college in the fall, because that’s what they do. They’re not considering financial decisions or transferring schools because it’s more fun in the classroom.

School-age children are beginning their fall sports season and preparing for the first day of school. They’re buying that first-day outfit. They’re chatting on their iPhones and sharing pics to Instagram and planning for Homecoming. They’re hanging out on hot summer days by the pool or gathering at the mall.

The adults are all dreading work on Monday and how short weekends are, something we always do. We complain about the price of gas and the long wait for a table in a restaurant. We don’t worry about mandatory furloughs, or reducing hours, or getting laid off. Most of us have no idea what a “Zoom” is.

We don’t worry about whether we’ll have enough medication. We don’t worry about getting sick or having an emergency, and how we’re going to get medical care. Or where the safest place is to get it. We’re not postponing routine medical and dental care.

We plan our vacation getaway to the beach, or the lake, or the mountains, like we do every year. We look forward to downtime under the crush of the never ending rat race. We go out for dinner at favorite spots, enjoying our favorite foods and an ice-cold beer or margarita. We look impatiently forward to the release of a long-awaited movie.

We plan cookouts with our many cherished friends. Pool parties, poker parties, Cards Against Humanity games, good food, beverages, and lots of laughs.

Our families stop by. We have overnight guests. We have lunch with friends, or meet up at a favorite watering hole. We help someone with a car issue or a neighbor with a project. We lend a caring ear or shoulder when someone needs it. Our doors are always open (and, often, our refrigerator).

We make multiple trips to the grocery store because we keep forgetting things we need. The shelves are always stocked except at the end of a busy Saturday. There’s plenty of meat, frozen goods, and toilet paper. People smile at one another when they make eye contact.

We’re not moving away from people coughing in the middle of the summer. In fact, we hardly notice. We hardly notice what others are wearing either.

In a cool, cool world, Silverfox is traveling on business and I’m sharing his shenanigans from Chicago, or St. Louis, or Virginia, or Upstate New York. My brother comes down with new craft beers to share with me. Neph stops by on his way through for work, because he likes us and we miss him. We have dinner with my in-laws regularly. My mom comes for a couple days, hanging on the couch with V and me. V would be here. O would be here.

We’re not more bored than we’ve ever been in our entire lives. We’re not constantly staring at the four walls and wishing to be anywhere but here. We’re not apathetic, and unmotivated to get things done. We’re busy, busy, busy and – while we do like to complain about it – we thrive on not having enough time for “this” or “that.”

We watch the news without anxiety and incredulity. The news reports everything that’s going on… from the accident on I-95 to the Sunflower farm in bloom to tributes to our local soldiers to the good Samaritan who helped a stranger in need. To bear sightings and airshows, to parades and fireworks, to drug arrests and shootings, to mundane political updates. There’s no endless barrage of subjective commentary.

Businesses don’t have to calculate the percentage of occupants in a new, unheard of era, or reach beyond the ordinary scope of health department regulations and fire codes, or police what people are or are not wearing inside their establishment. We don’t see signs on every window and door posted with mandatory regulations.

We don’t feel anxiety or anger towards people we don’t know who refuse to follow simple rules. In this cool, cool world, we get angry with the lack of turn signals and cutting off in traffic, but we get over it because there will always be assholes. Jimmy Buffett made up a song about it, and we laugh about it, because it’s not worth getting that upset. Ignorant yes, but harmful to the public at large? Not really.

We don’t question everything we see or hear. We trust that what’s reported is factual. We’ve never heard of fake news. We aren’t violently divided as a society, and our leaders show compassion for all of us as human beings regardless of our affiliations. They strive to unite us because that’s what makes us Americans and what makes us ALL stronger.

What does your cool, cool world look like?