Nice

It was just another morning in Niceville, USA. I awoke after another nice night of sleep, made a nice cup of fresh, and turned on the Tube to see who didn’t have such a nice night. After a half hour of catching up on those for whom life wasn’t so nice, a half hour punctuated with my internal comments such as “So what,” “That’s too bad,” “Serves you right,” “What an asshole,” “That’s a shame,” “Oh, boy,” I took a nice shower and headed off into town.

First stop was the bank. The teller was nice. Everything was right, my numbers were the same as the bank’s (roughly) and that was nice. “Have a nice day,” said the teller as I left. Next stop, the grocery store, and there, the cute babe in produce was working, and she nicely told me about the new avocados and how they were the best from Southern California. I thought that was nice, and then I proceeded to get the rest of the items on my list and went to checkout and the woman there was as nice as she could be as she inquired as to the satisfaction of today’s shopping experience, and I assured her that it was the ultimate in niceness and that if some poor slob from Somalia ever wandered into a place like this he would undoubtedly pee in his pants because he would have no idea how to handle all the incredible nicitude, and she laughed nicely, and the debit card worked properly like it usually does, and that was very nice.

Next was the oil change place, and the crew there were totally nice as they explained what all they were going to do to the truck in addition to recycling my old oil, which I thought was a nice thing to do, and I approved of all the nice extra stuff and then I settled in the waiting room to read my nice magazine. The fellas finished in 45 minutes, and I drove off, and I couldn’t help but notice how nice the truck ran with its new fluids and how nice the windshield was now that it was sparkling clean, and it was all just the essence of OK.

In driving around town during the day, all the other drivers were nice and orderly and nobody got pissed off at me or cut me off or flipped me off, and I didn’t encounter one iota of road rage or even minor hostility, and indeed it was basically smooth, functional niceness.

And that’s how it went all day long. Just like all the days in Niceville. Or at least, 99 percent of them.

And when I got home at 5 o’clock, I turned on the Tube to see the latest mistakes, accidents and villainies that had happened to an eentsy teentsy slice of humanity, and I thought to myself, after a densely packed hour of calamities and disagreements, “Wow, the world sure is going down the toilet.”