Good Stuff

I smile a lot.  It's a big smile.  I don't know if it's a nice one but it's large and it's coming right at you.  Most of the time I feel like smiling but I do it even when I don't.  I look people right in the eye and I smile and I hold the smile.  There's no mistaking what I'm doing.  

When I was getting sober I saw a counselor who asked, after several weeks of listening to me bitch about the same things over and over: "Are you happy?"

Offended, I replied: "Yeah, I'm happy.  I think."

"You don't smile," she pointed out.

"I do, too, smile," I countered.

"You never show any teeth," she said.  "You should try showing some teeth.  It's one of the main things about the smile."

After visiting a dusty, decrepit archaeological museum today that looked like it had not been visited by anyone since 1944 - every creature in there was snarling, including a beaver and, strangely enough, a housecat - we stopped by a small kebab restaurant.  It had pictures of the food - we find this to be a critical feature of the restaurants we frequent.  It ensures that we know in a general sense what we're ordering.  I smiled in a big way to the two young women behind the counter.  I got the food ordered and it was cheerfully delivered, big smiles all around.

After lunch we felt like coffee and dessert.  I went in and got the coffees successfully ordered but was rebuffed in my attempt to get a piece of baklava.  I tried to get across the idea that we wanted something sweet - anything sweet - to no avail.  No big thing.  When our coffees were delivered there were a couple of excellent brownies on the tray, totally gratis.

As we were walking home I stopped in at a small fruit and vegetable seller to stock up for dinner and breakfast the following morning.  Grocery stores are good because I'm in control of the process.  I like the small ones, too, because I'm dealing with a fruit and vegetable professional.  I grabbed a head of bibb lettuce.

The shop owner asked me something in French.

I furrowed my brow and said apologetically: "I'm sorry but I don't understand."

"For a salad?" he said in heavily accented French.

"Oui," I said.  

"Do you want one better?"

I shrugged my shoulders and smiled: Sure.

He disappeared into the back of the shop and came out with a beautiful head of lettuce.  I sat my basket on the counter and he began to ring up the items.  He looked askance at my two tangerines, walked over to the bin, and replaced them with two that he first carefully inspected.  He let me know, I believe, that it was the end of the season for this piece of fruit and that I needed to be carefull-er with my selection.

The products I purchased were excellent.

My last stop of the day, to buy water, was at a small chain grocery store.  The same young man had been there every night when I stopped by and knew I was not a local.  I smiled, with a friendly wave, and said: "Bonsoir,"; he said: "Good evening."  When I brought my purchases up he said: "I speak English un peu."

"A little," I said.

He collected himself: "Are you American or Anglais?"

I told him where I was from.  "Goodbye," he said when I left.

Good stuff.  Not stuff I get in Vacation City.