“I’m sorry”

“I’m sorry,” I would say to the pretty lady taking my temperature before I enter Thompson Hospital’s Physical-Therapy department.
“It's your eyes,” I would tell her. “They’re smiling at me, and that’s the worst thing you can do to this kid.
‘No pretty lady will smile at you,’ and you are.”
I didn’t say that. I did a few weeks ago, and it made her nervous.
I can’t have that! Let her do the talking. “Smile at me if you wish, but I ain’t makin’ you nervous.”
And of course she was smiling at me = I wasn’t making her nervous. Let her do the talking = lay low for me.
“You can use our sanitizer,” she said. I thereupon squirted sanitizer three feet across her desk.
“I can take care of that,” she smiled, as she redirected the squirter.
“Do I dare use this thing?” we laughed.
She’s laughing = hooray.
Our eyes met. Wow! I’m not used to this.
“I hope your husband sees what I see,” I might say.
Many ladies love when I say they have pretty eyes. But a few don’t.
I don’t wanna put a smiler on the defensive. I’m not macho-man; I’m a “bleeding-heart liberal,” says my sister.
Makin’ ‘em happy is not putting ‘em on the defensive.