My Missing Smile

The food was fine, the coffee great, and the silence fantastic.

Our family typically does not eat out a lot, but once in a while for a birthday or some other significant event, we enjoy eating restaurant food. My wife is an excellent cook in my opinion, so usually when we eat in town, we choose food that she doesn’t prefer cooking. One such dish is liver-and-onions. When she noticed an advertisement from Aunt Bee’s mentioning liver-and-onions on certain days, she decided that would be the perfect treat for my next birthday.

Early on a Friday afternoon in November, we left the older children with a babysitter and headed to town with only the baby in tow. The baby graciously fell asleep just as we arrived at Aunt Bee’s and slept the whole time we were eating.

Mealtime at home can be a very disorganized event. My wife and I often long for a meal where we can eat slowly, savoring every bite without interruptions. We got our wish: there were no spilled water glasses, no potty trips, no Daddy-do-you-know-what’s for a whole hour and a half. It was so strange that we barely knew how to eat.

After our plates were scraped clean, the waitress topped off our coffee, and we slouched back in our chairs to sip it down and let the food settle in.

Finally, it was time to move on. First stop for me was Home Depot. I had an item to return, so I headed to the customer service desk first. I was exhausted from working too many hours and not getting enough sleep. The food was heavy in my stomach and there were a few people ahead of me, so I stood in line dreaming of our nice soft bed with flannel sheets and a plush comforter.

Groggily, I stepped up to the counter as the last person left. The agent had taken an item from the previous customer and was trying to find a new home for it among a bunch of other returns. She turned back to the counter then stopped short. She put her hands on her hips and in a stern teacher voice said, “Where’s your smile?”

Her question jolted my foggy brain, but it didn’t quite sink in. “Huh?” I mumbled.

By then she was right in front of me. “I said, ‘Where’s your smile?’” she repeated firmly.

Realizing what a bad impression I had made, I quickly decided that some excuses might help me look better. “Well, we have four small children, and the two youngest get us up several times a night. I work fifty plus hours a week, and I am just exhausted,” I replied.

“That doesn’t matter. Your children are only small for a short time, and you need to enjoy them,” she retorted.

I almost cried. Not only had I made a horrible impression by standing in line with a long face, now I had tried to throw my precious little ones under the bus to save face. Here was a woman with tattoos on each arm, big hoops swinging from each ear, and she was preaching things to me that should have been second nature.

Fully awake and thoroughly humbled, I returned the item and moved on to finish the rest of my shopping. I could barely accept what I had just done. My first instinct was to stay as far away from the customer service desk as I could and hope I would never see that woman again. Then I realized that there was a very good chance I would never see her again, and the impression I had made could hinder her view of God. She might also develop a bad taste for all conservative Anabaptists.

My wife had gone to get a few items at Joann Fabrics. Then she came back to find me in Home Depot. After I told her the story, I knew there was no way I could go home without speaking with the woman again.

We went back to the customer service counter together. No one else was there, so we walked right up. I thanked the agent for calling out my actions. We visited for a while about our children and hers. If I remember correctly, she had five children and was very sad that she didn’t have more. She talked about how precious babies are and how much she misses their crying in the night. She had found a lot of significance in caring for her little ones. However, not all her children had the same father, and she mourned the ones who didn’t live with her anymore. She tried to use scriptural lingo in our conversation, but it only exposed her woeful lack of Bible knowledge.

Though several years have passed since this episode, her words still ring in my ears every time I go to town. It is easy to sit in a pew and philosophize about how we are the world’s Bible. We come up with elaborate theories on what we need to do to be a light to the world. But there is nothing like the bone-jarring bluntness of a person unashamed to describe things as she sees them, to make one realize that the world notices small and common things about us. We know that if our hearts are filled with the joy of the Lord, we have no reason to walk around with a long face. Rationalizing our actions doesn’t change what unbelievers see in us.

May these words ring in your ears as well as mine: “Where’s your smile?