The Cynic Express(d) 1.02: The Unsmiling Cynic

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It was a dark Thursday morning, and I wanted to be elsewhere than the gas
station on the western edge of Columbia at five minutes to five. I had seven
minutes before gone in to kiss the woman I love goodbye and she had asked me
in a dream-laden voice if I had to leave her. I had and was headed eastward
to a pre-ordained uneventful day in the doldrums of the printing industry. I
stopped at the little Shell on Providence, as usual, ready to gorge my car
with gas and myself with French Vanilla cap. Then, like a thunderbolt hurled
by the Olympian might of an overly-caffeinated, jacked up Mizzou student
strung out on third shift jobs, a voice echoed from the loudspeaker: "Pump
five, please pre-pay."
Now I only allow five minutes each morning I spend in Columbia for that
necessary fuel-stop, and that five minutes includes gassing and one trip in
for payment and coffee; two trips in would put me behind schedule, dammit, and
am I supposed to play guess what the gas tank will hold howdarethatpunkkid.
With a few creative applications of a certain verb/participle/noun, I stormed
the station with six dollars in my mitt to fire my Storm ninety-six miles to
work. There, behind the counter, the grinning, Van-Dyked kid lorded and
deigned to accept my pittance, my tribute to the great Dutch Petroleum Empire.
With that inconvenience he coupled this edict: "Smile. It can't be that
bad."
Of course this nice little story is my segue into this week's Generi-Rant
(tm). How damn very presumptuous of him, safe behind that anonymous counter,
to issue that imperative for me to smile. Granted, my situation is not
precarious nor dire (in the greater sense of life, mind you; I was not doing
so well for ETDs that morning), but he expected me to smile on cue?
I reserve that smile as a sign of my pleasure, and I did not derive
pleasure out of that disruption of my comfortable routine, albeit one that
slight. I share smiles with friends and relatives and even strangers when
something provokes a recognition that life sparks humorous against us
sometimes, or that in some instances humans can do nice things, or in
appreciation for unsolicited kindness, as rare as that is.
I do not proffer insincere smiles at the behest of others to assure them
that we share that which we do not. I don't flash my teeth in an innocuous
snarl to grease the wheels of unenthusiastic commerce. I refuse. I refuse.
How dare he!
But, of course, that's sometimes all a smile means these days: A small
tool in the manipulative arsenal, designed to calm us, to reassure us that
things may be as bad as we think, but at least they--the ones who would hope
that our smile was a grin of complacence or blithe indifference--can try to
blindside us yet. Actually, I should have said smiles mean that most of the
time these days.
Not for me. I shook my head gruffly, albeit it wearily and blearily, at
the young Shellman, and growled, "Yes, it is." Actually, in retrospect and
with the reflection that produced this column, I have to say it is worse.

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Copyright 1997 Brian J. Noggle. The author grants readers the right to forward
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