Day 1: The Power of Positive Thinking

My mother -- like your mother and her mother and all mothers throughout time -- pulled from some archetypal vat of maternal wisdom and taught me The Power of Positive Thinking.

Then, strangley, she raised a cynical agnostic who frequently blames others for drinking whatever was in the top half of the glass.

Hm.

At any rate, I typically view people who are perpetually optimisitic as effing annoying. Don't you? I mean, you have met someone like this, right? She is like a one woman pep squad, and I was more like the kid in the back of the bleachers wearing $4.99 Kmart pants and writing angsty poetry about how no one likes me while picking my nose and wiping the booger on the bottom of the bench.

I had Pep Envy.

No really.

But try to understand. You have seen this type of woman. She was a guest on Dr. Tyrah McOprah or some such talk show mess:

Southern. No, real southern. Like Texas southern. And blonde. And loves Jesus. And she is better than you. Yes, much better. Because she can iron 15 mens shirts (with starch), drop the kids off at [insert sporting event practice here], cook beef wellington, bake a pinapple upside down cake, maintain a DD bust and a 22 inch waist, do overtly sexual yoga poses in front of the window while the neighbors watch, and get her hair and nails did ALL IN THE SAME DAY. And while praising Jesus through song with a voice that makes angels and puppies cry.

Bitch.

And she's all like:

"You just need to let you inner light guide you to Jesus and do everything in his name and with a smile and with the single motive of pleasing everyone around you and being happy with everything you have and then you will be nothing but sunshine and sparkles to everyone!!"

Insert a grin full of perfectly white and orderly teeth here. Also insert the sound of me vomiting.

So imagine my surprise when I suddenly mutated into this woman at the grocery store today.

Yes. This happened. And it is surprising given my last grocery store moment of note.

Anywhoo, I have been trying to be really positive the last few days in that hopes that this positivity will build up and override any feelings of wanting-to-kill-others I might feel now that I am living sans cigarettes.

This means I smile a lot. And almost anything I say sounds similar to a cheer...

Me: "Ready class? Oooohkay! Let's talk about MODIFIERS!" :: spirit fingers :: "Remember modifiers? They D-O-N-T dangle!"

Students: [Full-on WTF stare].

So my checkout experience garners a similiar reaction from Bored Martin's Employee:

B.M.E.: "Welcometomartin'showareyoudoyouhaveabaggingpreference."

Me: [Making a freakish amount of direct eye contact with B.M.E.] "Well, I'm GREAT, thanks for asking! How are you?"

Had I not been so awash in my own pep, I might have vomited through the shiny-big-tooth-smile I shot this woman.

Now the Teen Grocery Bagger arrives. This bagger is different from Octogenarian Grocery Bagger, but equally piss poor and inexplicably slow at bagging groceries.

I smile at T.G.B.

T.G.B is thrown. Thinks smile is critique of some kind.

T.G.B.:"Um, you did want paper, right?"

Me: "Yes! Thanks! And you can just go ahead and jam all that stuff in one bag. Waste not, want not, right?"

I said that. I. Said. That.

T.G.B.: "What?"

Me: [In a surprising moment of clarity] "Nevermind."

I smile again.

T.G.B.: [Smiles back. Clearly getting the hang of this smiling business.] Want me to help you out?

Me: [Making eye contact so intense, it is making T.G.B. visibly uncomfortable.] No thanks! I can use the exercise!

What am I, eighty-god-damn-years-old? If I break a sweat carrying two grocery bags full of Kleenex and English muffins, please, dear jesus, take me to the hospital and stage an exercise intervention.

Me: [Staring directly into the soul of B.M.E] Have a lovely day!

B.M.E: [Thrown. I have beat her to the salutation. Yet, won over. I am freakishly nice.] Thanks! You have a blessed day!

Damn straight I will.