Where Have All the Smiling Faces Gone?

Where have all the smiling faces gone? Does anyone smile anymore? I spend the majority of my time walking the grounds of a massive American University and one out of a thousand people smiles. If there are two people walking together there is a slightly higher chance of seeing a frown turned upside down, but not because you passed, but because they might actually be talking about something funny with one another. (I bet it isn’t even funny) I know that whenever I pass someone on the sidewalk I always nod and smile as if to say hello, have a good one, and goodbye. I am almost always met with complete and utter nothingness. It is as if I am Ralph Ellison and have become the invisible man that he eloquently writes of being. It is as if people do not want you to be there passing them. It seems that it would be better for them if you just never existed at all. Why should they trouble themselves to acknowledge another human being that is within inches of them? I’ll tell you why, respect. They should respect the fact that I do not step directly in front of them and start river dancing, keeping pace as they go along. They should respect the fact that I put pants on and am not passing by them bare assed. They should respect the fact that I don’t pick my nose and wipe boogers all over my face as they approach. They should respect the fact that if I wanted, I could really fuck their day up good with an endless supply of tom-foolery, and mischief that lurks inside of my mind. People just seem to not give a single rat’s ass if there are other people on the earth or not. They have no respect that anyone else is alive, and for that, I must render little respect to a mass majority of the humanity I come in contact with everyday. I hope the day when I am a bare assed, river dancing, booger picker never comes, but who’s to say, I really am beginning to ponder such things. Please, just nod! All I need is a fucking nod! A smile, shit why would I even ask…poop…shit… Yea!