Hey Smiley!

A term of endearment that I haven't been called by in forever. I used to work for Bed Bath & Beyond years ago. I'm talking Junior and Senor year of high school. Anyway, I had this one coworker that I remembered fondly. Her name was Pat. Pat always had such a cheerful disposition ( which is very hard to have when working in a retail environment. Customers always think they're right. They can be rude... they're always destroying the aisles after you just fixed them... you get my drift ). You rarely ever saw Pat in a bad mood. It was impossible. She was always laughing. She made the shift easier. She used to call me Smiley even though she was the real ball of sunshine. I left that job because I ended up moving out of state. I've had several new starts since then. That nickname faded overtime. Then I came to Dallas... and somehow, Pat got reincarnated. There's a particular gentleman that I encounter on my walks with Shea. I don't want to say that he's homeless. I've seen him come out of one of the houses around my apartment complex. Hell, at this point he may just be a ghost of my imagination. I don't know his name... he doesn't know mine. It doesn't matter if I'm walking Shea or not. He's always around like a shadow. One moment he'll be there and then I'll blink and he's gone the next. It's the weirdest thing. When he sees me, he always shouts " Hey Smiley! " and immediately I smile back and think of Pat. As low key of an individual as I am, It must be something about my aura that makes people want to talk to me. I try not to walk Shea when other people are around because Shea gets distracted easily. More than that, my neighbors give her compliments and then it turns into a whole conversation. Now I'm distracted lol. I think that guy is one of my spirit guides. There have been a few days where I just wasn't in the mood. He would come around and say " hey Smiley... what's up? You don't look so smiley". It's just something about his intuition when it comes to me. We'll have a brief conversation and then I'll look away for a minute...and he's gone. I don't even hear him leave. Crazy.