I recently read a funny challenge on one of my favorite blogs (life listed by Danny Dover). The challenge was actually a set of small items to complete in 1 month, and 1 of the items (stare at a stranger in public until they smile back at you sounded like it would be a lot of fun). I also thought it would be pretty easy because I smile at people and they smile back all the time. Well my first attempt at doing this challenge didn’t go very well.
Attempt 1. I’m in line at the grocery store and see this lady with 2 kids behind me. She looks to be in a pretty bad mood, and the 2 hellions that she appears to be raising or at least purchasing food for look like a total nightmare (watching the entire scene I remember thinking to myself, man I am glad I don’t have any kids lol). So anyway I thought you know this lady could use a smile, now is a good time to try this stranger challenge. So I attempt to catch eye contact with her for 30 seconds or so…. fail. She is just watching these kids and telling them to settle down. Ok I need to step up my game and get her attention. She has her cart placed in between me and the rack of snacks that they have just before you check out… you know all the bad stuff you shouldn’t eat but they force tempt you with right before you leave. So what I decide to go with is I will ask her to hand me some gum, give her a big smile and she will be forced to smile back at my pearly whites…. all that ends up really happening is she (slightly annoyed) hands me a pack of gum (which I didn’t even really want) and I now am checking out with an unwanted pack of gum, and the laborious task of grabbing the gum has clearly annoyed stranger lady even more…. by this point I’m starting to get my items rung up by the cashier so I don’t have much more time left…. never one to bow to fate I decide that I will do a last ditch effort to just stare at her smiling while the cashier rings all my food up…. the end result of this smile blitzkrieg is that the cashier finally taps me on the shoulder and asks me to please swipe my credit card…. so now I have 1 extra pack of gum, 1 slightly more annoyed lady, and 1 slightly annoying cashier…. I decide its best to cut my losses and try this whole make a random stranger smile some other time.