KEEP YOUR COOL (IF YOU CAN!)

In this era, when too often we have become hypersensitive, keeping your cool is more important than ever. There are ways to handle difficult situations without immediately jumping into a confrontation.

I've found that one of the most effective tools is to keep smiling, even though you might say something less that friendly. You win the argument but, because you don't seem to be angry, your "adversary"doesn't know how to handle the situation.

I remember once being in a department store, purchasing something for my then-husband in the men's department. The clerk who had started to help me was called away. He turned to another man at the end of the counter and said, "Joe, can you help this lady?"

Joe was holding a clipboard and riffling through the papers on it. He looked up and said, "May I help you, ma'am?"

I pointed to something in the case in front of me, and said I wanted to see this. Instead of coming over to me, he looked up again from his clipboard and said, in an annoyed voice, "May I help you?"

I realized he expected me to come to him, even though I was the customer, and a woman, and quite a bit older than he was.

I could have made an angry comment. Instead, I smiled sweetly and said (in a voice that carried to the other customers in the department), "Certainly, young man, if you're not nailed to the floor!" He was in front of me in an instant.

And then there was the time I was driving into Brooklyn and missed the exit before the tunnel to Manhattan. I was with a friend. She said I would have to go through the tunnel into the city and then somehow turn around. Instead, keeping my cool, I pulled over to the side and said to the policeman on duty, "How do I get back to the other side? I seem to have missed the exit."

I was deliberately non-confrontational and friendly, not automatically annoyed at myself, him, the roadway, etc. I guess my "cool" pleased him, as he immediately said, "Don't you worry about a thing, little lady." He stepped out into the plaza and held up the traffic in both directions so I could make a U-turn!

Much of keeping cool in my life involved situations with my four kids. I think that's especially important---to keep the children from panicking and to give them needed reassurance at a scary time.

I remember once when my boys had been playing outdoors, and one of them had accidentally swung a rake, which had hit his brother on the chin. Lots of blood. I grabbed a bunch of towels for the kid's chin and called my pediatrician, saying we were on the way.

Keeping my cool? I told my other boys to run cold water into the tub. Before we left for the doctor, I put the bloody white towels in to soak and covered the wound with a brown towel!

And when one of my sons came in from playing and showed me his pinky finger that was dislocated into a Z-shape, I rested his hand on a pillow to comfort him while I called the doctor.

And when my toddler daughter ate a hard candy that got stuck in her throat, and in a panic ran away from my trying to help her, I simply grabbed her by the legs, turned her upside down and shook her until the candy came out. (The Heimlich maneuver hadn't been invented at that time.)

My own experience with the Heimlich was also a "Keep Cool" moment, though I knew I was in trouble.

My husband and I were attending a Police Organization function, where scholarships were being given out to children of the cops. My husband had walked away from our table to greet some friends. I was eating. A very dry piece of turkey stuck completely in my throat. Not a bit of air could pass it. I simply couldn't  breathe. Oddly, I was very calm. "I will simply pass out and die," I thought.

Feeling helpless, I kind of tried to pat myself on the back---all the while I couldn't even breathe! A ridiculous gesture. I looked up. A young man was at the end of the table.. He frowned and said, "Are you okay?" I shook my head. "Do you want me to do the Heimlich?" I nodded my head. He came around, pushed at my diaphragm and the piece of turkey came out.

The word got around after my husband and others returned to the table, and when the young man was called up to receive his scholarship (for a pre-med college program, no less!) he received a standing ovation.

Keeping your cool is especially important when you're raising children. (See my blog entry IT'S MY HOUSE AND I'M BIGGER THAN YOU ARE!) As I've mentioned there, the less you engage in head-to-head angry battles with your kids, the easier it is to deal with them.

I remember, for example, one son who loved to wave around his spoon or fork at meal times, even though there might be food on it. I had asked him numerous times to not do that, since bits of food tended to fly around the table.

One evening, at desert time, I was serving applesauce. Since he was the youngest child, he was served first. He took a spoonful of the apple sauce, then waved his spoon around. I asked him not to do it anymore.

He smiled and waved his spoon again.

Now I could have lost my temper and yelled at him. Instead, I kept my cool. My serving spoon was huge. I scooped up a giant spoonful of the applesauce, smiled back at him and threw the spoonful across the table directly at his face! He couldn't be mad at me, because I was still smiling.

It took me a long time to scrub the applesauce from the wall behind him, but he never did that again!

P.S. I spoke with him about this episode, and I had his permission to relate this story.

Finally, there was the time that one of my sons, early or pre-teen---can't remember which---announced that he was independent of the family, since he was old enough. Again, I didn't quarrel with him.

But when he came home from school and wanted his uniform for a game, he was surprised that I hadn't washed it.

"Sorry," I said. "Thought you were no longer a part of the family. But if you want to wash it, there's the machine. And please leave me a quarter for the cost of the soap." Needless to say, he wore his dirty uniform to his game.

And when he came home for supper, I announced that, since he was no longer part of the family, he would have to cook and pay for his own supper. And wash his dishes. It didn't take long for him to decide he wanted back into the fold! (My point being, I didn't lose my cool---I didn't resort to fighting with him, which would have involved pitting his ego against mine. And children's egos are fragile.)

Having said all that, I must, in all honesty, say there were times when I DIDN'T keep my cool.

For example---though I was cool about handling my children's' injuries, I lost it with my cat!

My husband was away hunting. I had taken the cat to the vet several days before to get her spayed. After several days, with the vet's approval, I had taken her back to get the stitches removed. When I brought  her home,  I noticed she wasn't licking at the incision, but was simply sitting under the dining room table. When she stood up, I saw that the rug beneath her was wet. Then I looked at her belly. The incision had opened up and her guts were hanging out.

I called the vet and he said he was leaving in five minutes. Didn't seem to care. Don't remember how, but I found another vet ASAP. He told me to wrap the cat's body in a tight towel and get to him as soon as I could. Holding the wrapped cat, I went out with one of my. sons, planning to put the cat in his lap as soon as he got into my car.

Just then, my husband's station-wagon came down the driveway, with a dead deer strapped to the roof! Completely unhinged, I screamed at him to get out of the way so I could drive my car to the vet. He looked at me as though I were nuts and said, "Get into the wagon with the cat!" He drove us at once to the vet. The doctor had cleared the waiting room and had even held the door open for us to arrive with the cat.

He saved the cat's life and even laughed for years about us arriving with a sick cat and a dead deer in the same car. (And I was NOT cool the whole time---was in a total panic! Maybe it was easier to be cool with a child you could reason with, than a cat that looked at you with glazed eyes that said, "Let me die, please.")

And further examples of NOT COOL---

I've mentioned before that my husband was drafted into the Army and that I followed him to Germany and lived there for nearly 2 years. But I don't think I mentioned that his transfer orders arrived a week before our wedding. (He was a baseball pitcher and he pitched for an Army team while in basic training. They had a successful season, but their team must have beaten the team of a higher-up officer so, a week before the wedding, it was announce that their team would be disbanded and shipped to Germany.)

Because of that, I spent my honeymoon in Guesthouse #2, Fort Dix, New Jersey! The first couple of days, when my husband came back from his processing, we went to the PX to buy stuff. The next day, while he was gone, I decided to be brave and go to the PX alone. I picked out my purchases and went to the check-out.

"Where's your ID?" the clerk asked me.

"I don't have one," I said, close to tears. "I came in before with my husband, so I didn't know I needed an ID."

"He should have known," the clerk said.

Weeping openly (definitely had lost my cool!), I finally said, "He's only been my husband for three days!"

He let me buy the stuff without an ID.

And finally, a happier "Losing My Cool" story.

When I flew over to join my husband in Germany, I was all of 21. I had never traveled much, and here I was on my way---alone---to a foreign country. I was excited but a bit scared. This was in 1955---Americans were just beginning to travel extensively in Europe.

At that time, jet engines were quite new. They were attached to propeller planes (I suspect that there was a bit of unease that a jet engine alone could cut it). Planes were called prop-jets. Because of the propeller engines, we still had to refuel. Once in Newfoundland, and then in Scotland.

While they refueled in Scotland, we were escorted to the waiting room. As we sat there, a young woman appeared, carrying a large tray filled with mugs of coffee. She turned to me and, in a thick Scottish accent, said, "Black or white?" (At the time, we in the US would have said, "Do you want cream in your coffee?")

That's when I really lost my cool. "Oh my god," I thought. "I'm in EUROPE!"

In spite of that, I still think that keeping your cool as often as you can is the way to manage the difficulties of this world!