Cliches: Guess What I Heard in the Library Today?

They say we shouldn't use cliches in our writing. Possibly in dialogue, but we want something fresh, right?

Today I was enjoying a blissful three hours writing/editing at the library when a real live human being flirted with me!

*Pausing record sound effect*

This is huge, yes it is huge! The number of people who have honestly flirted with me during the course of my entire life could easily fit on one hand. And when I told my husband about it, I don't think he believed me.

*Clears throat* This is how it went:

Completely absorbed in the screen before me, I reread my current paragraph, strategizing how to finesse the language some more.

"You dropped something."

I looked up to see a grinning teenager with a large gap in his teeth.

"Oh?" I couldn't begin to think what I could have dropped--I had been sitting in my chair for hours and this boy had just walked up.

"You're such a pretty girl, with a face like that you shouldn't drop your smile."

Eeeee! Woah! Did he really just say that?? At the end of 2009? Something we've heard for at least fifteen years???

I smiled at him, then shook my head. "Just concentrating."

And he grinned again then walked off.

And there you have it! I believe he was quite pleased with himself that he could be so smooth. Cliches shouldn't just be avoided in fiction. Strike them from every day life! Wow! What a line!