It is rarely that anything seems to surprise me. I suppose that is common as one grows older, but occasionally I am reminded that there might be a few surprises yet to come.
I went to the credit union to pay my car payment earlier in the week. I walked in just barely before the lobby closed. I walked up to the only available teller, a friendly young lady who grew prettier in my estimation throughout our brief encounter.
She looked pleasantly but searchingly at me and asked, “Has anyone ever told you that you look like someone else?” I replied that many local Union Countians confuse Attorney K. David Myers, Rev. Eddie Perry and me. (Just for the record, if it’s bad, I didn’t do it. Blame K. David or the Rev.!) I also told the girl that I had been confused with a pediatrician. I got to see this doctor in passing once, and I told my wife I believed him to be about the ugliest man I’d ever seen.
The teller then asked if anyone had ever confused me with anyone famous. (She’s getting a little prettier.) I replied not to my knowledge. I did forget for the moment that one of the employees at a Mexican restaurant that I occasionally patronize told me that a former employee would say, “Here comes Hitler!” whenever he saw me entering the establishment.
Next the young lady asked me if I had ever been told I looked like a movie star. (Now she’s starting to look beautiful.) I told her that never in my life had I ever been told I looked like a movie star. The teller told me I looked like one of the characters on “The Office”. She couldn’t remember the actor’s name or character.
I left the credit union feeling better than when I’d entered, and not just because the balance due on my car had dropped a few hundred dollars. Only later did it occur to me that perhaps I should look up the cast of “The Office” and see if I was truly being flattered, or if the character in question was another Hitler.
Next I went to a viewing at a church for a lady with whom I used to attend the same church. While leaving there, I ran into a preacher’s wife, and she told me what a good looking man I am! (Do preachers’ wives lie? If so, surely not in the very House of God!) The day just kept getting better.
I could honestly count on one hand the number of days (or times) I have been told that I was handsome or good looking (by anyone other than my mother or wife, that is) and have plenty of fingers left to pick my nose. I told this tale to a friend of mine, and she said, “He that tooteth not his own horn, it shall not be tooted.” It reminded me of another saying: “Every once in a while even a blind pig will find an acorn.”
Isn’t it wonderful that beauty truly is in the eyes of the beholder? Isn’t it also true that beauty is only skin deep, but ugly goes right to the bone?
Dear Reader, I hope that you are truthfully told often that you are beautiful by those with reason to know. Beautiful on the inside, where it truly counts. A beautiful exterior can hide a multitude of ugliness, but an ugly interior mars a beautiful exterior.
I leave you with some thoughtful tidbits from my email world.

When you can't find the sunshine...be the sunshine.

Some people are like clouds, once they disappear it's a beautiful day.

Comment about a certain politician lecturing: "It is like a frog calling you ugly.”
– Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy