I love that moment when you’re walking along and smile at some unsuspecting person.
You don’t know them.
You just smile because it’s nice.
You try to be happy and hope to make others happy.
And then that surprised smile of being smiled at springs onto their faces.
If it were a cartoon it would
BOING
at the edges.
And your innerds grow warm and you know that if Superman were around he’d be able to see them glowing inside.
There’s just something special about a smile.
My husband promised to always make me laugh – and smile – he promised that too.
And he does – everyday.
The amazing thing about my husband is that he doesn’t just make me laugh
he strives to make everybody laugh
or at the very least
SMILE!
There is nothing like watching that expected smile BOING onto someone’s face.
Wherever we are he’ll manage to meet the gaze of someone who looks a bit down and his face will explode into an amazing smile and he’ll say, “Hi!” or “Hello!” And they look somewhat startled at the sound of his cheery voice but there is nothing as contagious as a smile and before long they are grinning and saying, “Why, hell0!” or “Oh! Hi!”
He calls every person we meet with a name tag by name – the gal ringing up the grocers, the guy waiting tables.
It’s amazing, the smile that springs on their faces when he calls them by name and grins at them.
He teases – hands them the debit card and then flicks it away a few times before surrendering it and they laugh or smile and he says,
“Made ya laugh” or “made ya smile”.
I laugh and shake my head and love him even more. I think about how long of a day some of those workers have had and some of the rude people they have had to put up with and I love that my husby goes out of his way to put a smile on their faces and give them a bright (and usually silly) spot in the day.
Old, young, adult, child, or teen – Paul can manage to coax a smile out of anybody.
In fact, I overheard someone once say about my husby, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen him NOT smiling” which really made me SMILE!
And I thought of one of my favorite quotes:
“Happiness is like jam. You can’t spread even a little without getting some one yourself.”
And since I ALWAYS get sticky fingers when it comes to jam, I can relate really well to this (of course it usually because one of my charming children used it and got jam all over the OUTSIDE of the jar – ha ha).
So, the next time it’s been a long wait in the grocery store line,
the person ahead of you had coupon after coupon, half of them didn’t work right, and they had to argue with the person working the register over every single one.
Okay, I’m exagerating, but you’ve all been there – or someplace similar –
and you finally get there and the clerk gives a tightlip smile as they apologize, waiting for you to lash out on incompetance and how long the line was.
Give a smile a try.
You can see them cringing inside (after all, they saw you rolling your eyes at how LONG everything was taking), waiting for the final straw to make today their worst day EVER
and then you
Grin
and
Chuckle
and say,
“Hey, no problem, my mom taught me patience.”
or
“My special super hero power is patience in long lines.”
And the tight-lipped panicked smile relaxes into a full fledged smile that BOINGS on the edges and there go your innerds again, glowing and blinding superman.
In fact, you feel a little like Superman’s side kick.
Making the world better.
One Smile at a Time!
Fun and Flawed 