You should have seen the smile on that politician’s face.

It completely digested the lower portion of his face. Each tooth in his mouth was visible and each gleamed. You could actually hear them gleaming, the sound of a spoon being tapped against fine crystal.

It was a wide smile and long-lasting. For a full minute, the lawmaker looked like “Jaws” with expensive dental work.

It came with accessories, that smile. There was the firm handshake and the little elbow squeeze. There was the half-wink that whispered: “There may be others here with us, but you and I are special friends. Buds. Compadres.”

It was pretty amazing. Especially considering that 10 minutes ago, I had been outside, leaning against the bricks and smoking a cigarette. This same toothsome politician had passed me on the sidewalk, not with a gleaming smile but a sneer. A sneer that whispered: “You are beneath me, street person. Step out of my way or I will smite you with sheer awesomeness.”

It was not until we were standing together inside the newspaper office that the smile came on, all 250 watts of it.

Pretty amazing. But then, I imagine the first thing you do when you decide to run for office is go to Smile University. How to turn it on like the lights over Fenway Park; how to add the wink and the elbow squeeze; how to transform your smile into a sneer of derision in the face of disgusting people on the sidewalk.

Professional smilers are everywhere.

Like car salesmen. Show me a seasoned salesman and I’ll show you a person who can beam through a spinal tap. You can put hornets in his shorts and he’ll still smile and tell you that the blue Toyota Camry is the absolute best deal on the lot and he’s offering it at such an insanely low price, his boss will probably punch him in the ear. But he wants to do it. He wants you in that Camry.

He’s smiling, see? You can take him at his word.

I went to a function the other day that was populated by politicians and university leaders. It was a smile orgy. The people who met me at the door were grand champions of the smile game. Swear to God, the intensity of it was such that I got a little sunburn standing in the glare of all those gleaming teeth.

“Well, hello there!” radiated the main greeter whose smile I would swear was surgically enhanced. His eyebrows went up to the ceiling. One cheek went east, the other went west as he pumped my hand and squeezed my elbow. His whole body was smiling.

And when he sent me over to a pair of women who were waiting with a press packet and a name tag, their bodies were smiling, too. Had it been an athletic competition, I would have accused them all of taking steroids to produce smiles of such caliber.

“Welcome, Mr. LaFlamme! Welcome!”

Yes, welcome. To the town of Stepford.

I don’t mean to imply that people who smile like carnivorous, Hollywood fish have secret agendas. It’s just that when people smile that way, I suspect they have agendas because I’ve bought a lot of horrible cars and I’ve been sneered at by a governor wannabe who only smiled at voters and journalists.

Once burned by the light of a blazing smile, I guess you’d say, twice shy.

And I also have to consider the sad fact that I am personally unable to smile on cue in just such a way. Ask me to smile for a camera, half my face falls away as though the jaw on that side has suddenly come unhinged. Present me with an unwelcome visitor, the best I can do is grimace and try to make it as friendly a grimace as possible. Give me a handful of sucky playing cards, I look like a man who has a face full of sucky playing cards.

I’m a terrible poker player. I’m a terrible salesman. So, if you see me smiling, at least you know I’m genuinely glad to see you. Either that or I’m up to something.

Probably the latter.

Mark LaFlamme is a Sun Journal staff writer. You can put a smile (grimace/sneer) on his face by writing to [email protected].