Hey Perty Lady

So you know how I'm usually all sunshine and optimism and light? Fuck you, I am. Anyway this isn't a blog about what is good and beautiful and right in the universe. It's actually just a rant about something that skeeves me more than mullets or shitty drivers. So what pisses me off so that I took to blogland to rail against it? Strangers- men who feel compelled to tell me to smile. Let me explain.

In my last life I was a waitress while attending high school and college. I began this career at a shitty spot in good ol' Gilbert at a diner slash salad bar that was a beacon for truckers and trailer trash alike. I learned a lot about people and life in this place, serving fried food and strong coffee to the regulars who spent hours in the booths that lined the walls. The restaurant was bathed in a constant cloud of cigarette smoke in a time when puffing indoors was still considered okay and despite the dirty mouths and dirty hands of the blue collar guests, I mostly loved working there. I was seventeen when I started and wide eyed about life to the max. Mick and Carla (my reformed hippy parents) despite their liberal political leanings, managed to swathe my sister and I in a rose-colored upbringing. I'm grateful for this now, but at seventeen and clueless about perverted trucker types, I could have benefited from a sharp tongued dig here and there.

Anyway, it was in this wannabe-Denny's that I was first faced with this experience that has gotten me so fired up over a decade later. I was waiting on this Billy Ray Cyrus type and his fat faced friend. They were mechanics or some other equally greasy profession and they sat in the booth with their legs up on the seats, their backs pressed against the wall, spread out like it was their goddamn trailer. Billy Ray had the requisite mullet and he smoked Marlborough Reds down to their filter, holding the cancer stick between his thumb and his index finger, fat sausage-like hands I still remember. He was handsome in a hillbilly way and his charm helped erase his genetic misgivings like his affinity for overalls or his shameful use of the English language.

Anyway, Billy Ray and Fat Face sat in my section and within moments of approaching their table and offering to get them a drink he was hitting on me. Let me remind you I was seventeen, a virgin and clueless so I assumed they were just being nice when he complimented me on my smile.

I giggled and naively ignored his attempts at flirtation and continued waiting on them and the tables around theirs. At one point I stopped near their booth to refill the little sugar packets in the round straw basket. I looked down, concentrating on counting the white, blue and pink squares when I heard from the booth the words that make my skin crawl today,

"Smile!" Hillbilly Ray said with a stupid goofy grin on his face.

I looked up startled from my mindless task and my expression hid nothing. "What the fuck did you say?" my face must have read because he repeated,


"Smile! Come on now, why ain't a girl with a pretty smile like that wearin it all the time?" he asked, his country bumpkin twang all over his words.

Uh because I'm not a fucking china doll meant to walk around with a pasted on expression and glossy dead eyes hiding the fact that I'm sick and tired of waiting on backwoods dickwads like you. I said in my head. Yet Mick and Carla had taught us manners and even though my cheeks burned pink and I yearned to say something pithy and smart all I came up with was, "Uh... well um... uh...." and then I gave that douche bag what he wanted, a smile and a shrug.

Ick. If I could go back now and shake the shit out of seventeen year old me I would. You don't have to perform for that loser. I would tell me and encourage the sweet girl to give him a deadpan "Fuck you" and a turn of the heel.

It is likely that my complete lack of response to Hillbilly Ray is the reason I still disdain this seemingly harmless expression. But that doesn't condone the chauvinistic undertones of the simple-minded demand. If you think I'm wrong imagine the roles reversed and a woman insisting the same from a man... "Smile!" What is he a fucking children's photographer?

Point being, as a big girl I'm now more selective with who I share this ray of sunshine smile with. And it sure as shit isn't cheesedicks in overalls telling this little woman what to do.