contagious

i used to smile a lot. all the time i am told, or was when i was younger. not so anymore. i spend most of my time in a pensive state where i'm thinking on something.

at our local grocer there is a man named tom. tom has a set of pearly whites a dentist would kill for. they are straight, and he uses them liberally. the ear to ear grin of this man greeted me for the first time when we had just moved here and i was aflush with dread about where things were and how to find said things.

until you move acorss the country (ultimately, not necessarily all at once, you see my journey began in LA, so for me to be residing in NY, it is a move across the country from me. from my beloved stomping grounds), you don't realize how vastly different things are.

even the local store did not carry the basic food preparation items we had grown accustomed to. there was plenty of pancake mix and even waffle mix, but no baking mix. just straight baking mix. this was a perplexing ordeal when all i wanted to do was cook something familiar for my family. i would stand in the aisle debating on what to get, trying to figure out what was sort of similar. questions about food rank very low on my scale of stand around and ponder, so this annoyed me to no end.

then we found our local big giant discount superstore, and tom.

that man's smile could launch a thousand ships, i'll tell you. it is like a bad virus only in a good way. i try not to smile, but he grins like a child with a new bike whenever he is dealing with anyone, not just me.

so at first i started laughing and said,

do you always smile like that.

he kept right on grinning and said,

yes.

he was getting my deli stuff, and in between slicing cheese, i'd tell him profound things like,

you have a great smile.

but i couldn't help it, i couldn't help but stare and now, i put my head down and laugh. he dares you to smile. forces it, by his insistent smiling. i've never seen anything like it. how one man can go about grinning all day, i don't know. but i'm grateful he does.

i realize how grim i've become. how stonefaced. how, try to make me laugh you fool in general. i really don't carry the smile i once did and no one seemed to notice or care. or, worse, be able to change that fact. except for tom.

last week we went to nyc on our regular shopping day, so we missed him. weds, we passed him by the milk and he said,

hello

and grinned.

i yelled out,

hey, i was just thinking of you.

i keep telling him i am going to write about him, and now i have.

i pray you find a tom, someone who infects you with life. with joy. with hope. even if only once a week. it is worth it. i hope to spread the disease once i am fully contaminated.