Alexey, despondent during a blowout not in the Timberwolves favor, walked back onto the court with sadness. Suddenly, his teammate Ricky Rubio approached him with some words of advice.
“Change this face, be happy, enjoy!” Ricky urged, patting him on the shoulder. After glaring at him for a second, Alexey couldn’t help but smile at the absurdity of Ricky’s earnestness.
“Thanks man. I will enjoy.”
——————-
Stack of bills in hand, Alexey sighed and shook his head. His cable provider had raised his rate for no reason, and he was paying $100 a month for slow, unreliable internet access. Disgusted by it all, he threw the bills on the ground and stared at them with disgust.
Without warning, Ricky Rubio stuck his head out from underneath the kitchen table.
Startled, Alexey yelled, “Ricky! What you do here?”
Ricky smiled his serene smile and said, “Change this face, be happy, enjoy!” before withdrawing back under the table.
Alexey stuck his head underneath the table to order the unwelcome teammate out of his house, but to his surprise, Ricky was gone.
——————-
Driving along the highway towards the arena, Alexey noted with worry that traffic seemed to be slowing down. The reason soon became apparent: emergency lane closure in the left lane. The roadway quickly congested and turned into a parking lot of angry drivers. He pounded his fist on the dashboard, cursing in Russian.
From behind him came an unexpected voice: “Change this face, be happy, enjoy!”
“Aaah!” Alexey yelped, turning around to find Ricky Rubio sitting happily in the backseat of his car. “Ricky, how you get in my car?”
Not saying a word, Ricky just stared at him with his big, blue, expressive eyes.
“Dude, get out my car. Now.”
Still smiling, Ricky opened the door and walked through the standstill traffic until he was no longer visible. Alexey, who had been scowling this entire time, suddenly found the situation extremely funny, and his face changed, mouth cracking into a wide grin. Inside his brain, the words of his Spanish teammate echoed endlessly: “Be happy. Enjoy. Be happy. Enjoy,” and it was then that Alexey understood.