It's Nice To Be Nice

it’s nice to be nice. people around here always say it. it’s nice to be nice. it’s kind of our motto. and our town is nice. the post office is unlike any other in the country. no one gets upset. everyone goes at an even keel. and no one troubles one another. i heard of a town where everyone’s nice to one another. well that’s where i live.

it’s not that trouble never falls on us. i got my car repossessed. but the man was very nice about it. i was upset. but i was nice about it. there’s always a nice way to do anything. if you slit a man’s throat and offer him a smile, he smiles back. he sits and smiles. and in a very short amount of time, the man is dead. but at least he’s nice about it.

it’s nice to be nice.

our town was founded on this principal. its in the town charter dating back three hundred years. we like it this way. and we keep that tradition alive.

there is one amendment to this clause. if you can’t be nice. if you need to be mean. like you’re grinding your teeth down to nubs and it’s been building and building for years behind a smile that just feels so damn weary. it’s a great effort always smiling, the bones in your face ache with it. but yea, if you need to be mean, you are free to be mean. you are free to spit curses and drool madly at someone. but that someone gets payment in return.

in our town, where everyone is nice and for the most part happy. we trade nastiness in kind. if you prod your finger in your wife’s face, she gets to chop that finger off. if you’re just so damn mad that you’re willing to part with a finger here or a toe there, then so be it.

it’s nice to be nice.

in our town, where everyone is nice and for the most part happy. it is our civic duty to carry a cleaver with us at any time. this is very important. every man, woman, and child carries their cleaver with them. the punishment must be meted out at the moment of offense. it’s like when a dog shits the carpet. you smash that dog’s face in its shit. immediately. so it knows that it did wrong and can associate that wrong doing with its punishment. its the same thing with the citizens of our town, where everyone is nice and for the most part happy.

it’s nice to be nice.

ritual is key to our prosperity. when i do wrong. i know i did wrong. because my neighbor severed what was left of my wrist the moment i cursed him for keeping me up all night with his cousin’s birthday party. they are a wild bunch. but it was my fault for not addressing my neighbor with civility. i know i did wrong. i just let my temper get the best of me. i guess i’ve always been this way.

everyone in town knows me. i’m the mean one. the hot head. the one who doesn’t really smile anymore. they fixed that. my smile. i can be a mean one. and the more they take, the harder it is for me to keep my cool. i have to learn to keep my cool. i lose my cool. i can’t lose my cool. got to learn to stay calm. and smile. oh yeah. i forgot about my smile.

doreen the smiling queen. she helped me with my smile. pigtails and a grin as wide as the day is long. doreen in the yellow dress. it was her eighth birthday. her mother baked her a big angel food cake with bright yellow frosting. just how doreen likes it. her mother felt sorry for me. sitting all alone on my porch. propped up carefully in my special chair. reggie from the pharmacy built it for me. he cushioned it just right so i wouldn’t get bed sores anymore. nice guy, that reggie.

it’s nice to be nice.

anyway, doreen’s mother, nell, felt sorry for me. just a heap of nothing, all by my lonesome. so she sends doreen over on her birthday to give me a piece of that big yellow cake. she was scared, i think. but who could blame her. little girls at her age can be squeamish.

my flies got a whiff of that big yellow cake. and started fluttering about happy as can be. i could see beads of sweat on little doreen’s brow. she didn’t know what to say bless her heart. she just stood there mumbling. muh-muh-muh-mumbling. now i wasn’t as happy then as i am now, so i may have been a bit coarse. and on her birthday, the poor thing.

she said ‘why don’t you smile’

i said ‘why don’t you sit on a fire hydrant and spin’

i was just so mean. all the time. i should have said:

i don’t smile because

your beloved neighbors

chopped off my fingers

and then my toes

and bit by bit,

and year by year,

i became less and less

your mother chopped off my foot

when i cursed her

for not joining me at the town dance

she did it, right there

at the dance, for everyone to see

and my face was flushed

and my blood was up

so i cursed her

and bless her heart

she had to mete out

my punishment

as i spoke it

so that i would know

that i had done wrong

not just to know

but to feel it in my gut

that i had done wrong.

and poor little doreen. doreen the smiling queen. pigtails and a grin as wide as the day is long. doreen in the yellow dress. with tears in her eye, hiccuping wildly, never losing that big old cheshire cat grin. she knew what was required of her. and she took the edge of her cleaver, almost as big as her. she dragged the cleaver along my lower lip. and just like that i had a big old cheshire cat grin. just like her. and bless her heart, now i don’t have to force a smile.