You’re Never Fully Dressed Without A Smile

After serving up back-to-back posts about fears – first mine, then Melissa’s – I decided it best to prepare something for you all that is the very polar opposite of those readings. Something that I greatly hope will make you smile, or even, Signature Smile.

Since the beginning of June I have been working with the Men’s Wearhouse in Edwardsville, Illinois as their Assistant Store Manager. Retail just seems to be in my blood and where I work best and this job is proving to be no exception. I have to say that I absolutely love it there! I am blessed with a great team and a wonderful work environment with minimal stress. This is the first time I have been truly happy with work since I was at Macy’s Mission Viejo and I left that store for another Macy’s location in March of 2015, so it’s been a real minute.

Well, at Men’s Wearhouse, like every other retailer, the monthly reports come out in the middle of the month highlighting how every store performed for the previous month. In August it was announced that my store was #1 for the month of July! We could not have been more thrilled – especially myself – this continued my nearly perfect leadership streak! July was the first full month I was at my store and for us to be #1 was a dream result. Because of our success we received the traveling heavyweight belt to display in all its glory on our back counter for all to gaze upon.

Y’all already know there is no way this crazy big ass belt was going to come to my store and not have a hundred photos snapped with it. Upon learning we were to receive it, I was already creating perfect Instagrammable scenarios in my mind. Well, the day it came to us we all took a series of beautiful photos and to her misfortune, Lydia, our Store Manager was off that day and I had to send her the pictures. Her reaction is the reason for this particular post.

She replied in the moment with a simple text, but when I saw her the next day she was hooting and hollering with laughter about my smile, my Signature Smile. She could not believe that was the way I smiled and when I proceeded to tell her that I smile that way in all my pictures she replied – through a fit of giggles – that she didn’t believe me, so I took out my phone, pulled up Instagram, and handed it over to her. “Scroll on down,” I encouraged and she sat there doing just that all the while wiping fits of tears from her eyes as she roared with laughter. The crowning moment came when she came across pictures from my wedding.

“EVEN AT YOUR WEDDING!?!” She hollered out laughing all the while before adding, “I gotta show my friends this smile of yours!”

A couple days after Lydia’s discovery of my Signature Smile she was instructed to create a thermometer graph showcasing our stores progress towards a certain goal and as she did she enhanced it with some printed photos circling the main graph. She featured herself and Omar, the other wardrobe consultant, on one side and then on the other was me and my beaming smile giving a classic double thumbs up for all to see each and every single time they leave the backroom. This surprise feature even makes me laugh each time I see it. My face on that paper is so blown up that it almost looks like it’s actual size!

“You been smilin’ like that your whole life?” Lydia inquired to which I informed her as I am about to inform all of you that it is actually a relatively new development in my life all things considered. It seems like I have smiled this way forever, but that is certainly not the case.

Regrettably, I have no idea when my Signature Smile truly came into existence. Yes, there is a picture of me smiling that way in either the first or second grade whilst at Montessori, however, that was an isolated incident and most certainly not commonplace. I just spent roughly an hour combing through my Facebook photo albums to try and discover the exact time I made my Signature Smile mainstream and while I cannot pinpoint an exact start date I can see that by our annual Halloween party in 2012 it was the only way I smiled. Even underneath my giant parrot beak (Melissa and I went as the Birds and the Bees) I can still spot that now iconic Signature Smile I since wear in every photo.

While I cannot remember the exact moment in time that my Signature Smile originated I most definitely remember why it originated. My mom was taking a picture of me and told me to smile and I did just that only I Signature Smiled and she hated it, absolutely hated it. My soon-to-be Signature Smile pissed her off something royally in that moment and she screamed and hollered at me like I was in some serious trouble for smiling that way.

Naturally, her reaction only made me want to smile like that more and as a result of her repulsed reaction came the birth of my Signature Smile, so really, I owe her a HUGE THANK YOU! Had she of reacted any other way I would probably still be smiling like a talentless idiot, so thank you mother for saving me from smile boredom.

I really wish I could remember where and why she was taking pictures of me because in all honesty that in itself was a real rarity. She hardly ever took pictures of Chris and me, so why she was in that moment I have no idea, but thank goodness she was!

Lydia’s long-lasting amusement from my Signature Smile is something that after six years I have grown very use to. People either really, REALLY love it or they think I look like I’m making some sort of mockery of the photographic situation. Nothing is more annoying for me to hear than when someone instructs me to, “take a normal picture now.” What the fucking fuck!?! Normal is one of those terms that mean something different to everyone. My Signature Smile is my normal, so what these haters should be saying is, “now take a societally normal picture and look just like everyone else who has ever had their picture taken ever.”

My Signature Smile has become as much a part of me as my love for McDonald’s heavenly food or any and all things Disney. In less than six years time I have seamlessly sewn it into the fabric of my being so much so that when a celebrity is spotted flashing a similar smile, I’ll receive a Snap or text informing me that Shawn Mendes or whoever it may be is doing my Signature Smile and those are the moments that truly make me smile – not in my signature way – but in the heartfelt kind.

The fact that so many of you now associate that animated, open-mouthed, tooth-filled grin with me means so much and it means even more when someone Signature Smiles in their own photo or Snap and sends it my way. I seriously fucking love it more than almost anything. I cannot get enough of them hence why my phone’s camera roll is full of screenshots highlighting dozens of you sending me your best Signature Smiles. I really should create myself a coffee table book featuring them all the same way Melissa and I created one this past Christmas with all the crackers screenshots for my mom. (Confused, well don’t worry, there’ll definitely be a future blog about my mom and her crackers remedy!)

Thank you all for reading! This has been my shortest entry to date, but I do hope you all loved it! I want to leave you all now with a bit of wisdom from the song that titled this post and which also happens to be track #18 on our DeShon Dynasty wedding soundtrack.

Your clothes may be Chanel, Gucci, your shoes crocodile, but baby, you’re never fully dressed without a smile. – Sia