Automatic Response

Today as I was leaving campus a bunch of kids kept shouting at me, “Hello! Hello! Hello!” As they always do. 

One of them ran up to me and asked, “Teacher, how are you?

I repeated the robotic reply we have taught them, “I. Am. Happy.”

I turned around and kept walking and realized I had the hugest smile on my face, because what I told her I really meant.

I am happy.