The Power of a Smile.

Six weeks ago I wrote a post called An Angel in a Shoe Shop, which related the sense of connection I felt with the woman who served me. Today I went into the same store and was served by another, younger, woman who was also a model of everything a first rate shop assistant is supposed to be (a faculty now somewhat rare, I’m sad to say.)

During the process of conducting business – a rather inflated expression considering the fact that I was only buying a £1.99 shoe horn – the subject of the previous post appeared and smiled at me. Nothing significant there, you might say; ah, but there was. It was the kind of smile that surprised me. It was a smile of recognition, and had a genuinely ‘it’s nice to see you again’ look about it.

I’m not used to that sort of smile. I’ve always thought of myself as being too innocuous to be memorable on such short an acquaintance. How many customers, I ask myself, must she have encountered over the past six weeks? Why would she remember me, much less be apparently pleased to see me again?

And yet it seems she did, and it was of substantial significance to me, and so the angel in the shoe shop reprised her elevated role and sent me on my way considerably lighter of heart. It also afforded me a nice little lesson which I should have learned a long time ago:

A genuine smile is worth a thousand complimentary words, just as a false smile is one of the ugliest features in the human spectrum. I’ve learned to tell the difference, much to my edification.