The Tyranny of the Forced Smile

in the Magic Kingdom, they are all expected to perform as if they love their work.
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When I was a child my mother always wore the smile-mask. It was so ridiculous that it began to haunt. I still remember a vivid dream I had when I was 11, about a family vacation in our station wagon. We got out and found a rubber smile resting on a plant in the jungle. We were told by a tour guide that it was a cast off from a face lift.
Back then The Stepford wives was my favorite movie. I have since come to love The Ice Storm. There's something sinister about wealth and the deprivation woven into it. The privileged suburbs shaped my terrifying view of humanity until I ran away and found real people in the real world.