Antics in Abbott by Alexis Greenberg L'98

 “I love you, baby, but I just can’t smile.  I love you…baby…but…HAHAHAHAHA!  Ahhhh, I can’t do it!”

 As I approached our group’s usual table in Abbott dining center (the one next to the drink dispensers), I witnessed two of our friends facing each other, one chanting this amorous line, and the other making faces in her direction as she spoke.  I set down my tray amidst the residual chuckles of the rest of our friends, the apparent audience to this performance; the two participants, still grinning, turned back to their food. 

“Who’s next?” someone asked.
“What are they doing?” I asked.

In this, the height of adolescent lunchtime amusement, I was introduced to the stately game of “I Love You, Baby, But I Just Can’t Smile.”  A pair of individuals would volunteer to play, with one person designated to chant the phrase three times in a row without cracking a smile while looking directly into the eyes of the other player.  Though rules governing the listener’s behavior varied (“no tickling” was instated in our group as quickly as the tactic was attempted), generally he or she could do just about anything publicly decent to evoke laughter from the chanter as long as he or she did not touch the person speaking.

Alice Tanner, with determination barely solid under the laughter that already bubbled beneath her words, volunteered to be the next chanter, and Bob took on the challenge of making her laugh. Finding no free chair on Bob’s side of the table, Alice cheerfully plunked down on the floor below the juice machines so she could be beside his chair. Bob turned in his seat to face her, his back now more or less turned towards the table.  I was directly across from him, and thus could no longer see his face though I had an excellent view of Alice, her eyes sparkling.

Alice took a deep breath as we watched her face (and Bob’s back).

“I love you, baby, but I just can’t smile.”
Even from behind, we could see Bob was smiling his Bob-smile.
“I love you, baby—“
Bob started to lean forward.
“—but I just can’t—“

Slowly, pseudo-romantically, Bob leaned his body down towards Alice, head inclined slightly, apparently moving in for a movie-style kiss.  From the back, it looked completely believable.  The table erupted into  gleeful girlish shrieks; hearty, unguarded laughter; and a smattering of compulsive applause.  Alice, who had been kneeling on the floor facing Bob, tipped over from laughter at the unexpected mock advance, and could not even manage to utter the last word, “smile.”  Climbing out from between Bob’s chair and the overhead juice machines, Alice returned to her seat, happily defeated and blushing from both the giggling and Bob’s antics.

Needless to say, Bob won.

Bob, suave, smiled his Bob-smile and turned back to the table amidst much praise.

Classic.

 “I love you, Bobby, but I’m gonna miss your smile.”

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