Time and Patience

If life's experience smiles kindly
upon you, those times when you feel
discouraged, apprehensive of the future
fearful of the present and in need of
a friendly smile from someone
genuinely engaged in you as an
individual, feel free to dispense with
the civility you feel owing in excess
meeting by happenstance with the
ultimate overbearing bore whom
only his faithful dog could love
without reservation. When your
face betrays your emotions and
the fellow leans in with his faux
concern, pressing for whatever
may pass as gossip, simply do that
mental shrug and shift the conversation
making it brief and pointless as you
casually note you're late for an
appointment, leaving the fellow
bemused and none the wiser. The
residual satisfaction of bypassing
that little social trap could even
proffer a glimpse of hope that the
issue of your pressing concern is not
that grave that time and patience
won't work their magic to resolve.