​​​​​​Because humor is funnier when you know it's true.

Smile, darn ya, smile!


They say “smile and the whole world smiles with you,” but that’s not always true.

Especially if you happen to be a Boomer.

Back when I was in my thirties and forties and an attractive young woman walked past me on the street, I had two choices of appropriate facial behavior:

1)  Look up, look down, look away, and not smile for abject fear she would … gasp … not smile back! A fate worse than death. Maybe a lot worse!

2)  Look up, look at her, and smile pleasantly. Which usually did produce a smile in return which was always lovely to look at just by virtue of being a smile. A smile  providing me with a pleasant gratified feeling, and shortly thereafter a rousing sexual fantasy.

Sometimes the experience was even more fun.

During one particularly rainy afternoon in Philadelphia I smiled at an attractive blonde with an umbrella being buffeted by the wind and rain. “This really sucks, doesn’t it?” she said smiling in a particularly charming and impish manner.

No, it didn’t suck for me … it made my day!  And I even managed to hold off the sordid fantasy until later that evening.

Now I am sixty … umm …. err… number!  And now if I walk down the street, and an attractive young woman approaches, I am seized with an insecurity I have not known since tenth grade public speaking class.

OMG, what do I do?

If I smile at her, will she think?

1) Why is that grandfather smiling at me?  Maybe he has a granddaughter my age? Okay, I’ll give him a sympathy smile.

2) Why is that refugee from the movie Cocoon smiling at me? Doesn’t he realize that NOT EVEN if he were the last man on Earth and Earth were about to careen into the sun?

3) Why is that refugee from a Mathew Brady Civil War daguerreotype smiling at me? Doesn’t he realize that NOT EVEN if he were the last man on Earth and I were drunker than I have ever been in my life and I possessed no functioning vision whatsoever and the Earth were about to careen into the sun?

4) Help! Police! Help! 

So I usually don’t smile because none of those outcomes seems desirable.  Getting a “This really sucks, doesn’t it?” seems as long ago and far away as the  first Star Warsmovie.

OMG, here come a young woman now! When I was her age, Ronald Reagan was in diapers!