If the lights on Sansome Street synchronize from red to green in a certain way with my morning gait and I navigate between the canyons of buildings to bring me across Bush without stopping, before the red hand starts to flash across Pine, then my commute takes me past Two Twenty Sansome, where just behind double gold-gilded glass doors is perched a gleeful security guard, who waves to me with a fever again and again until I'm out of sight, leaving me with smile for the whole rest of the block to California Street.

I don't know what causes this random act of goodwill, and at first I thought I'd been mistaken for someone else. This was surely the reason, and left me without another thought until the next time the lights randomly brought me by.

There he was again, perched as before and with a gleeful, toothy wave directed right at me. Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence but three times... This time, I replied with a subdued smile and inconspicuous wiggle of my fingers at my side, lest any of the sullen faces trudging along the sidewalk would be disturbed.

I didn't think of him again until the next time the lights synchronized and that toothy wave caught me walking by. This time, I smiled and returned an open wave. Totally infected all the way to work, I wondered again about the reason for this random rainbow.

It's a treat to pass by Two Twenty. I save it for those random days when I want a smile, when the lights align like the stars, and when I want to make Mr. Two Twenty smile.