I'm just curious. How many of you walk around the grocery store alone with a cheesy grin plastered on your face? I'm guessing not a lot of you. Personally, if I saw someone like that in the grocery store, I would think that they were doing one of two things--passing gas or laughing at the voices in their head. Either way, I would probably avoid direct eye contact and steer my buggy to the other side of the aisle.Why is it then that every time I go somewhere, alone, unsmiling, that some stranger has to go out of his or her way to either tell me to smile or to remark on how sad/depressed/tired/sick I look?
I know that part of the problem is my eyelids. They're droopy. They have been my whole life. If I had the money to fix them, I probably would, assuming I could find a doctor that didn't turn me into Kellie Pickler or make me go blind. It also probably doesn't help that my upper lip could use a healthy dose of collagen. Without it, my natural facial expression seems to be stuck somewhere between a pout and a grimace.
Just the same, my droopy eyelids and my thin lips are part of who I am. They're just as much a part of me as the tracheotomy scar on my neck or the size of my waist, yet no one has ever come up to me and said, "What a hideous scar!" or "Man, you look particularly bloated today." They may think it, but they've never said it. So why is it okay for them to attack me for something else I can't control?
I'm sure some people ask if I'm sad/depressed/tired/sick because they actually care if I am. However, it has been my experience that most do not care. They just want to bully me or put me down. Take, for instance, the investigator that worked in the solicitor's office down the hall where I used to work. Every day he would come by and talk to the male law clerk in the office next to me. Every day he would also make some snide comment to me about my appearance before he left. His comments were never phrased in the form of a question. That is, he would never say, "Hi, Staci. How are you?" or "Why do you look so sad/depressed/tired/sick today?" Instead, he would say, "Wow. You look really sad/depressed/tired/sick today."
The first few times that he did it, I would respond with something along the lines of "I'm fine" or "I'm not." However, it would never shut him up. He'd still say the same thing the next day. For awhile, I tried ignoring him, but that only made him worse. He would just clear his throat and say in a voice loud enough for the whole building to hear, "I said you look sad/depressed/tired/sick today!" Eventually, I learned to just shut my door or hide in the bathroom every time I heard him coming.
Then there was one of the solicitors that he worked with. Let's call her Designer Dolly since she always wore designer clothes and never repeated an outfit. How she managed to do that on a government salary I'll never know, but she did. One Christmas, Designer Dolly had a poinsettia arrangement sent to my office. I had assumed that she had sent the same to the other law clerk, the judges' offices, and the clerk's office as well. She hadn't. When I sent her an email thanking her for the flowers, she responded back, "Well, I thought you needed them since you're always walking around the building looking so depressed and all." I didn't much like the pity flowers after that.
Now it's Stock Boy Stan that I'm having to deal with, the Kroger employee who tells me, "Smile," "Cheer up," or "Oh, it's not that bad," every time he sees me. I used to smile in response, but all that ever got me was an "Oh, come on. That's not a smile." I hate that. I hate that when I actually do smile, it's not good enough for the Smile Police. In their minds, if you don't smile like Julia Roberts or if you're genetically predisposed to look like you're constipated every time the corners of your mouth turn up, you're not smiling at all. You're just sad/depressed/sick/tired.
So what do I do when I need groceries? I don't switch grocery stores. Instead, I shop in stealth mode, peering around every aisle and every soda display while "Secret Agent Man" plays in my head, all so I can avoid running into Stock Boy Stan. Unfortunately, pretending to be Sydney Bristow doesn't always work. Sometimes like today I have no choice but to walk by the guy, especially if I want something that he is stocking.
For example, today I wanted cheese. Today he decided to stock cheese. I had to either forgo the cheese or pretend he wasn't there. I went with the latter option. Stock Boy Stan, however, wasn't deterred. Before I could even get past the eggs, he said just as loudly as he could, "Hey, it's Good Friday! Smile, why don't you?"
I didn't smile. I just gritted my teeth, grabbed my cheese, and turned around, as I listened to him whisper to Stock Girl Stephanie. If I wasn't going to smile before, I definitely wasn't going to smile then, not with all the whispering.
I swear one of these days I'm going to go in a store with the biggest, cheesiest smile I can muster on my face, skip down the aisles, and bop my head from side to side like I'm Jan Brady. How much do you want to bet that, when that day comes, instead of saying, "Wow, she finally smiled," Stock Boy Stan and the rest of the Smile Police will think I'm crazy and call the police instead?
