Get Happy

 
Sometimes you are just having a bad day; things are not going your way, people are unkind.  You are feeling like a Gloomy Gus and you just want to go eat worms.  It can be hard to shake these moods to return to that happy upbeat person trapped inside.  I've been there and am ready to share a couple of techniques that I find helpful and you may as well.
 
Ice Cream.  Yes, ice cream can give you at least temporary respite from the troubles of the world.  To get maximum benefit you need to hold the ice cream in your mouth and let that creamy sweetness slowly melt on your tongue.  This allows the healing vapors to directly ascend to your brain, bringing immediate relief.  Ice cream also releases seretonin, the pleasure chemical, giving you a sense of well being and happiness.  But there is more.  Ice cream has been scientifically shown to make you smarter.  Of course the very fact you are eating ice cream proves you are smart, but a Japanese scientist demonstrated that people who ate ice cream for breakfast did significantly better on intelligence tests.  Ice cream for breakfast! Did you get that?  It doesn't get much better than that.
 
Now, as effective as ice cream can be sometimes it is not enough.  Sometimes you need something more, the touch of human kindness.  Where can you find that any day of the week?  A car dealer.  I know what you are thinking - a car dealer?  That is where all those nasty, pushy salespeople who haggle price endlessly and yell or cry if you won't buy their car can be found.  That was then; this is now.  Somewhere along the way car dealers had an epiphany.  They all (well, most) found religion or ate too much ice cream and now they are warm and welcoming and wonderful.
 
I was recently been in a bad moody (sorry if it was obvious) and even ice cream didn't snap me out of it so I stopped in at my local new car dealership.  A young woman greeted me with a broad smile and a warm handshake.  She offered me coffee and a comfortable chair. She inquired how my day was going, how I was doing.  I confessed that things were not good; it had been a day.  She was most solicitous and asked how she might help.  A convertible, I replied, I might need a convertible. 
 
People who drive convertibles with the tops down always look like they are having fun, They are carefree, laughing and happy.  Oh, and the sun is always shinning. A note of caution, people in convertibles with the top up are trapped and miserable, hunched over the wheel wanting to burst out through the canvas covering.  Nothing says happy like a top down drive with car songs blasting from the radio.
 
 At the risk of sounding like the old curmudgeon that I am, I must say that young people today don't know diddly about car songs and probably don't even know what diddly means.  If I may elucidate, car songs are songs about cars.  Often they include girls, which is OK, and occasionally surfing.  Surfing songs are only legally permissible outside of California on perfect sunny days in a convertible with the top down.  Even then don't over do it.  When you hear the music coming from young peoples' cars it is often rap or hip hop or worse, pabulum pop or what masquerades as country these days.  Most of today's country music would have Willie turning over in his grave if he was dead,  which he is not thanks to all the pot he smoked.  He may not know where he is or who he is but he's still on the road. 
 
Car songs mean the Beach Boys "Little Deuce Coupe" or "409" (She's real fine my 409, She's real fine my 409, Giddy up giddy up giddy up 409).  Wow, they just don't write lyrics like that anymore!  And lets not forget the quintessential car song "Hot Rod Lincoln" "Son, you're gonna' drive me to drinkin' / If you don't stop drivin' that Hot Rod Lincoln." That's a car song.
 
But I digress.  The sales rep and I walked out to the lot.  Over in the far corner was a 2017 124 Spider convertible; a red convertible.  As we put the top down the sun came out right on cue.  She handed me the keys; my mood brightened.  We hit the street driving north to the entrance to the interstate.  The ramp is a nice tight right hand sweeper.  I settled into a line, punched it, hit the apex and as we approached the driving lane I had to slow down to merge with traffic.  A smile crossed my face.
 
Back at the dealer I thanked the saleswoman for the drive but confessed I didn't intend to buy the car.  "I know," she said.  We both smiled.  It was going to be a good day.
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