Somehow I came late to the game of a happiness challenge being published in the online New York Times feed. Wednesday’s challenge is Day 3: Make small talk with a stranger.
I was doing labs (routine, every three to six months) barely after sunrise this morning, when the tech turned my arm over, preparing to draw blood, and she noticed my tattoo. She asked whether it hurt to get a tattoo in that area of the wrist, and I said that it hadn’t. She said she was considering getting a tattoo on her wrist but was hesitating because it might be painful.
“Do what makes you happy,” I said. “Life is short.”
“I think I will,” she said with a big smile.
Yep, it’s basically clichéd old-person advice. Sometimes things get repeated because they’re true.
Me, Daisy, and my tattoo, 2018
ETA: If you’re interested, the Day 1 challenge is “Take stock of your relationships”; Day 2 is “Try the 8-minute phone call”; and Day 4, Thursday, is: “Tell an important person in your life how you feel about them.”
Love that tattoo!
A way to keep him with me all the time. =)
phone calls to friends and family are n e v a r eight minutes. The long distance bills —remember those?— could be as insane as the telemarketing and the infamous 0.01 cents per minute false advertising scam I heard recorded phone bill arguments over back in the early 2000s that I can’t find anymore. It was amazing how fractions of cents became actual whole cents.
Back in the late 1980s before I moved to Texas, my phone bills were INSANE because of those long, very long, long-distance calls. 😱