Make a stranger smile

Its really great when you can get a little kid to laugh. I’ve been watching this kids show called “The Upside Down Show”. The guys do lots of physical comedy, use lots of sounds, and have their fingers walk around in what they call “Action Finger” skits. Today I got this kid to laugh because we were playing with a lego dump truck, and the “Action Finger” guy kept helping him reload the truck.
I really like using the imaginary remote. Also, physical comedy is pretty inspiring. It makes kids laugh when you do the wrong thing like fall over or pretend like a stuffed lobster is biting you. Pretty good stuff.

I’m not sure if I can get credit for this when its part of my job. There is an exhibit where I work that allows children to pull a rope to make a “box of cargo” go into and out of a big ship. When I was playing with some of the kids the other day, I snuck a stuffed lobster onto the cargo box when one of the kids wasn’t looking so it was sitting on there when he pulled it up. He was really happy but is MOM was really delighted. So then I did it with a stuffed octopus. She was totally into playing after that.

I also got a huge bunch of kids playing together. It was playground level madness. Parents were in awe of their childrens imaginations. Me too. Fun day.

I walked into the elevator on Monday morning, exhausted and a little stressed. There was this lady there that was in a great mood and she was going to another floor to deliver papers to an office in the building. I told her it was great to see someone so happy first thing in the day, on Monday nonetheless, and that she inpired me. She was already smiling, so maybe this doesn’t count. She made me smile.

I was parked at the stoplight and I saw someone that had on their workout clothes and was carrying a towel. It looked like they were on their way to the gym and I felt so happy for them that they might be following through on a fitness goal. I smiled at them and they smiled back. It seemed like they knew that I knew that they were doing that. It was funny. I wonder if that is really what was going on?

I was at the bank today. The guy next to me had his baby in the car seat on the floor so it was looking at me between his legs. I was trying to get it to smile by playing peek-a-boo. It made the teller laugh out loud. I told her there was a baby and she said, “It must be a cute one”.

I started working in a childrens discovery museum this weekend. My job is to play with the exhibits with the kids. It’s just about the most fun any adult could possibly have.

So there was this family that had a maybe 5 year old and a 15 month old in my section. I noticed that the baby was a little wide eyed and overwhelmed. Whatever they tried to make her happy just didn’t quite work. She was cranky-tired-scared-unhappy baby.

I felt really desperate to “do my job” of “making sure that everyone had a great time that day” so I looked around and there were really no baby toys around. I managed to find a fish hat. I’ve learned that when I put on hats, it kinda scares the kids, so I didn’t do that. I did get down on my hands and knees and pretend that the fish was swimming around.

I think the baby liked it because I was at her level and I didn’t come near her. She started to cheer up and so I got her a fish hat too. We crawled around a played a bit. The mom relaxed. I did my job effectively.

And, I made a baby smile!

I went out to run errands with my girlfriend this morning. I didn’t do anything to my hair and even didn’t put mousse in it. Hawaii makes my hair look like a Wookie. It really does.
So I was in the restroom a couple of hours out of the house during the morning and I looked in the mirror at how awful it was. But I thought to myself, its OK and went out to wait with my friend for her son’s basketball practice to start.
So as I walked out into the sunlight I overhear this grandmother, pushing a stroller and walking with her daughter say to the baby, “Hey sweetie, look at the lady with the crazy hair”.
So a stranger made me laugh, I made her laugh and the grand slam, I may have also made a baby laugh.
Whew, and I didn’t even have to try. That was just too easy.

This seems like such a joyful thing to do. I totally am going to try this.

i have decided that this is the best thing on my list.
if you inconvenienced yourself in the tiniest way and it helped out a stranger, improved their day a little, made them smile, think of what it could do for them.

it might not do anything,
but what if they were contemplating suicide and that one random act of kindness was what saved them.
now i’m not saying that’s what is going to happen,
but still, what if.

that is now my goal every morning =]