This afternoon I walked past Richard E Grant in the High Street. At first I didn’t recognise him; I just knew he looked familiar. We were walking in opposite directions and as he got closer, I decided to put on my half-smile that I use especially for this period from when I set eyes on someone to when my brain finally gets the work done and hands me the person’s file.
This is when I will decide on my next action; keep the half-smile and add a little headshake in the person’s direction (if it’s for example a friend of a friend that I’ve met a couple of times but don’t really know and now can’t even remember the name of) turn the half-smile into a full one to go with a hello and a how are you (for if say I used to go to college with this person) look the other way and try to pretend that my smile is for someone else (if I realise that the guy only looks familiar because I stood behind him in the queue at the supermarket yesterday).
But since more often than not my brain simply refuses to cooperate and just stands there like a bad secretary with attitude (chewing gum and filing her nails saying, 'Can’t you see I’m busy?') I usually end up just sticking to that half-smile which makes me look a bit dumb (I’m sure), but friendly (I hope).
This was exactly what happened today; I just walked past him hurrying my brain to come up with information and kept the half smile firmly in place. I think I scared him a little.
Some time later, when the lousy brain secretary finally slammed the appropriate file on my desk, in it I also found this charming and very fitting quote from Richard E Grant as Withnail (in Withnail and I), ‘I feel like a pig shat in my head.’