In a Nutshell – commentary by Trevor Barnes
Speaking for myself, what is more welcoming than a warm and genuine smile, be it from a person with whom you are on personal terms or from a total stranger?
Be it from a pretty girl or from your boss at work, a smile is the easiest way to show acceptance and approval from another person. The smile that emanates from the face of that person, also infiltrates the windows of the soul, and the eyes join the whole experience in a happy engaging twinkle.
In times of uncertainty and doubt “Let a smile be your umbrella” and when despair is eating at your fragility, “Smile and the world smiles with you, cry and you cry alone”.
The humble smile has probably mended fences between wrangling neighbours, saved you from a spanking, smoothed the path back into lover’s good graces and helped you side-slip out of a sticky situation.
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Hospitality managers working at reception at holiday resorts and hotels are now not able to welcome guests with a toothy grin. Another casualty of the face mask wearing regime are those people who are deaf and need to see the mouths of those people who are communicating with them.
Unfortunately, the present Covid-19 pandemic has thwarted this means of social intercourse, instead, below the eyes, is this unfashionable and blandly boring cloth face garment, which has now become a permanent part of our going-out wardrobe, when we will be in the presence of other people.
In the past, young ladies never left home without money for a taxi or a telephone call home and boys always made certain they had a handkerchief in their pocket.
What the practical use of a handkerchief in an emergency was I do not know! Now, the call is “Don’t forget your face mask!”. When this nightmare will be over is anybodies and every bodies guess, but if the clever people do not know, surely then neither do we.
All that remains is to mask up, wash hands frequently and endure the golden rule of social distancing, and no sneaky kisses in the lift please!
So for the protection of your own life and those of your family, say safe.
