"Oh my!" she tittered, "You have such expressive eyes!"

"Why, thank you." I responded pleasantly.

The tastefully pantsuited, twinkle-eyed old lady cocked her head and twinkled her eyes at me knowingly. "You know, you won't ever be able to hide what you're thinking, because it'll show right through your eyes!"

I toggled the automatic chuckle -- Oh, ha ha! Yes indeed! How funny of me! -- and turned back to my plate of grapes with toothpicks in them.

Wait ... what? I won't be able to hide what I'm thinking?

Crap! What was I thinking? I scrolled through the list of recent emotions: boredom, mild amusement, the usual wash of cynicism, a touch of good-humored disdain ... Was there anything else? To what was she referring? I felt a surge of terror. What terrible things were shining through my eyes, betraying my innermost feelings so clearly that a complete stranger could discern them? What on earth was she talking about?!

I can only imagine what kinds of bewildering expressions convulsed my face following the comment. The first thing to hit was confusion, followed by anger -- how dare this lady assume she knows what I'm thinking! -- then repentance and terror again, all punctuated with spurts of attempted facial control and pseudo-impassiveness. I imagine my face resembled what would happen to a cuttlefish if you started scrolling wallpaper samples behind it.

I have never been given reason to believe that my face broadcasts my every emotion, the few exceptions being when I am watching a particularly painful performance of some sort and am accused of appearing judgmental. However, people DO often make the mistake of assuming my facial expression reflects what I am feeling.

For example, people will walk up with a concerned face and ask, "Are you okay?"

I will immediately jolt out of whatever daydream I was entertaining and make a quick check of my facial expression. Then, and this is interesting, I quickly change that expression to something completely unrelated. For example, if I feel my face might be frowning, I will switch it over to utter shock. I think I do it to throw people off. Anyhow, after I have thoroughly confused the person who was kind enough to inquire after my well being, I will respond with an intelligent, "Huh?"

"You just looked sad/angry/confused/lost/frightened is all."

I have yet to have someone match my expression to what I am feeling. Unless they say confused, because I am almost always confused in some form or another.

Speaking of confusion, it's positively bewildering when people skip over the asking-me-if-I'm-okay part and go straight to the make-jokes-about-my-expression-knowingly part. E.g. "That guy better look out before you beat him up." or "Well, somebody got awfully starry-eyed around that cute waiter." Since typically my brain is not anywhere near what my face is doing, I will have no idea what the person is referring to, and I will react by panicking and denying everything, which only succeeds in making people smug.

The little witty quip that I have devised for those situations is that there is a five to ten minute delay between what I am thinking and what shows up on my face. The expression you are seeing actually occurred in my brain several minutes ago. However, that is somewhat inaccurate. I think a better explanation is that I spend a great deal of time lost in my own bizarre thoughts, and when I exit reality, my facial expression just disconnects from my brain. Then, deprived of anything to react to, my face goes off on its own to entertain itself until my brain gets back.

So say what you will about my treacherously telling eyes, you sparkly-faced old lady. You are getting expressions chosen at random from a zillion peculiar permutations of facial movements.

You may think I harbor distaste for what sort of garnish you put on your chicken salad, but I am in fact devising clever ways to create puppets out of toothpicks and fresh fruit.