Have a Nice Day

In St Louis, this  blogger is used to hearing, "Have a good one," at the end of a conversation or service worker interaction. Of course, the "one" refers to the day and is a mutation of the previous, "Have a nice day." How this wormed its way into our conversations, frequently replacing "good bye" or "thank you" is a linguistic mystery.

However, last week I had occasion to drive to Cape Girardeau. While I overnight-ed there () and actually spent less than 24 hours there, this blogger must have heard, "Have a great day," about 100 times. This in itself is not astounding, but the fervor, positive emotion, and smiles which accompanied it were. It was like a positive greeting and good bye from the hotel clerk to the delivery guy to the restaurant workers to the pool boy to the staff at S.E.M.O.

This blogger even got a little paranoid with the frequency that this happened: was there a monkey on my back or did I have a huge piece of spinach hanging from my front teeth? Or was I maybe farther South where manners and a slower way of life was the norm?

Back home and reading one of my favorite poets and writer, I came across this short paragraph by Fernando Pessoa's "The Book of Disquietude," pp 19-20:

"To act is to live, to be expressed is to endure. There's nothing in life that's less real for having been well described. Small-minded critics point out that such-and-such poem, with its protracted cadences, in the end says merely that it's a nice day. But to say it's a nice day is difficult, and the nice day is difficult, and the nice day itself passes on. We must conserve the nice day in a florid and prolix memory, constellating with new flowers or new stars the fields and skies of the empty and ephemeral exterior."

With as much emotion as this blogger can muster, he wishes you a nice day! :)