Shovel. Photo by the Man, taken on his new iPhone using some sort of funky filter app that makes your pictures look like Polaroid shots. I can be a pretty snarky driver in the morning. It's hard not to be when dropping off children at Our Fine School, with its signs posted every five feet that announce "This is a Cell Phone-Free Zone! Please hang up your phone so you don't run anyone over, you moron!" (or something to that effect), and all the moms in their SUVs chatting away on their cell phones.
That gets my goat, and I feel I must express the fact that my goat's been gotten. The boys think I'm hilarious, but I suspect I'm not setting a good example. I've written about this before, I think, and I still haven't mastered myself.
So today I tried something new. I plastered a smile on my face and kept it there. It felt really weird. I've read that if you want to cheer yourself up, just smile, and there seems to be some truth to this. I felt oddly cheerful and full of good will. I also felt somewhat medicated in a Stepford Wives sort of way.
Sadly, my happy smiley feeling did not stop me from wanting to plow down the guy in his tiny MG who whipped around me in the drop-off line to get a prime piece of curb territory. No smiles for Mr. Mid-Life Crisis, no sirree bob.
***
I'm fighting off a cold. I've been taking zinc lozenges that are supposed to lessen and shorten my cold symptoms, and they seem to be doing the trick. I expected to wake up this morning feeling horrible, but I actually felt fine, aside from the fact that I couldn't breathe with my mouth closed.
I think that's it for now. I am smiling as I write this. It makes me like you very much.
9 comments:
Ha! Hilarious, as usual, Frances. I used that smile trick on my children when they had grumpy attitudes. I'm make them go look in the mirror and smile. By the time they turned around, they were giggling. Works every time! I've used it a few times on myself.
Oh gee, I'm so glad you like us very much. We certainly like you lots and lots and lots, even when we're not smiling. I am now though! We call them yummy mummies here and they drive the same cars! MG guy all yours! Am yearning for suns to come in from wherever they are now, just to try Debbie's trick...
I like you, very much....smiley or not. You always make me smile.
Jody
Self-medicating with smiles...maybe that's what I was doing, in the olden days, but my children said it was disconcerting, so I tried to become more deadpan.
I do use zinc lozenges, though.
Oh goodness, I will have to try smiling while driving. I am always looking for ways to make a drive more pleasant. Certainly can't count on most of my fellow drivers for THAT.
Lately, I've been peeking at myself in random mirrors and I've noticed I do some weird things with my mouth sometimes. It's sort of an old lady thing, I think.
The picker uppers and the dropper offers often drive such big, fancy patent-leather cars, don't they? Whatever happened to good old station wagons?
This must be why I get to school half an hour before the rest of the parents venture out. Oh wait, no, it's because I work there - definitely a plus though!
I'm so sorry you're sick. I hope those germs didn't travel through some sneaky cyber portal from us to you!!!! Good to hear the zinc is working well.
get well soon!
I am still not used to my new haircut and new shape, so keep smiling at my reflection in big glass shop doors cos I think it is a stranger coming the other way!
re your comment on my blog about sausages- I get the feeling that American Sausages are nothing like british sausages. We had a choir from Judson College, Alabama visit our church and we did a BBQ. They refused point blank to eat the sausages as they suspected them of something!!
blessings x
Thank you for the laugh. I am now smiling too. I like you very much too! I'm going to have to practice smiling before my children arrive home. Mainly because I need it for one othem as they are going to get a gentle (hopefully) piece of my mind.
Blessings!
Deborah
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