something you'll want to catch

We recently watched an episode of "The Middle" (airs Wednesdays on ABC) where Sue, the middle child and only girl in the family, must come up with a hypothesis for her high school science class and then test and evaluate her findings. To add to the drama, Sue's teacher seems to dislike her immensely.

Sue, played by Eden Sher, is the epitome of the socially awkward high school girl - friendly and sweet to everyone but definitely dances to her own drum. While the other students in her science class have hypotheses that would rival those of biochemistry doctoral students, Sue's is more of the 5th grade science fair caliber - "Smiles are contagious."

I won't give away any more of the show but it got me to think about whether or not smiles ARE contagious. After all, yawns are. And laughing seems to be. So I conducted my own definitely unscientific experiment.

One very hot day in July, I went to the post office (some would say the crankiest place in town!), the bank, the gas station, Target and the grocery store. I smiled at every person I either had direct contact with (the bank teller, for example) or merely passed in an aisle or saw from afar (like at the gas station) and recorded whether or not they smiled back. When I tallied the results, I was both surprised and not surprised.

My results were both different and consistent with Sue's but you'll have to watch the episode to find out how. Out of 53 (yes, that's fifty-three!) people I smiled at, all but seven smiled back at me. Of the seven who did not, one was an elderly man who seemed pretty cranky (his wife did smile back, though) and six were young teenagers who looked at me like I was crazy - I definitely detected some eye-rolling! The 46 people who returned my smile ranged in age from toddlers to elderly, more females than males (although I did not keep track of gender for an accurate count).

I was not surprised that an overwhelming majority (87%) smiled back at me. I do believe that smiles are contagious and that the simple act of a smile can cheer someone up, turn their frown upside down or just let them know you noticed them. What did surprise me was that I encountered 53 people in the course of doing a few errands one afternoon. Wow! Fifty-three opportunities to possibly make a difference in someone's life, to let them know they were noticed.

And I bet YOU smiled just looking at all these sweet smiles!

This experiment has made me determined to be more aware of people around me (it's easy to withdraw into myself and not even notice people) and to smile at them. And I noticed that I was blessed when they smiled back - we had a brief moment of connection. In my book, that's a win-win situation!

"A happy heart makes the face cheerful, but heartache crushes the spirit."  Proverbs 15:13