Smiling, Definitely Smiling

I walk to the appropiate shelve and start putting my books away. I am trying not to be totally annoyed and throw the books on the floor in frustrastion. I've been shelving books for what seems like hours, but has only been 2. I hear a couple of kids to my left and just to make sure I don't step on any of them I take a glance over there.

There's two boys and they are behaving pretty well, they aren't screaming, nor are they pulling all the books our of the shelves and then laughing manically at the mess they've made. I tend to steer clear of little kids for those very reasons. But what I also see is a small girl, strapped into a pink stroller. The most interesting feature about her is the fact that whoever dressed her had a sense of humor. The little hair she had was pulled into a on-top-of-the-head-ponytail. It flopped around whenever she moved her head.

Suddenly, she was staring intently at me. I did the thing that comes naturally, I smiled. She stared. I kept smiling. She kept staring. My smile started to fade and her stare just got more intense. Finally I decided to put my book away, like I was supposed to be doing.

I just couldn't help it though. I had to check and see if she was still staring at me. She was. I tried that smiling thing again. She didn't seem to know what I was doing because she continued her nice stare of death. But instead of getting mad, I started to crack up. For some reason, this random little girl's stare was hysterically funny. Of all the things that had already happened to me today, this one moment had taken front and center.

I started to laugh. I looked at the little girl's intense face and just laughed. I closed my eyes and and let the laugh fully intoxicate me. When I opened them again, I saw that the little girl was smiling at me. Truly smiling. I smiled my widest back at her and together we beamed rays of happiness at each other. It was magical. Her face transformed from the dreary-pudgey-cheeks-kid to the oh-so-glorious-and-beautiful-smiling-child.

Suddenly, I really wanted to take this child home. She was darling. She was kind. She would beam rays of happiness at me and I would live happily ever after.
That was about the time her mother came and strolled her away. All I could do was sigh. Then I picked up the books I had discarded and continued to shelf. The last ray of happiness settling over my now weary frame. I sighed again. Then I went back to work, the memory of her smile imrpinted in my mind.