As I was walking to Tesco to buy lunch just now, a very pretty girl going the other way on a bicycle gave me a dazzling smile.

My first thought was to wonder if she was someone I knew but hadn't immediately recognised. My second was to wonder if I might have appeared to be smiling at her due to screwing up my face slightly because I was facing into the sun. The idea that she might have smiled at me just because she felt like brightening my day only came third, and by the time it occurred to me to just take the smile for what it was and have my day brightened by it regardless of the reason, I'd already spent too long trying to work out the motivation for it and puzzlement was outweighing pleasure. Deliberately smiling back certainly wasn't an option, because by the time I thought of it she was long gone.

I think my problem is that the wrong parts of my brain are the quickest to start up, so that I've already looked it in the mouth by the time I notice that it's a gift horse. Sigh.