So here I am chatting to a woman I meet at a car boot, and I tell her I’m going on holiday, and she asks, ‘Anywhere nice?’
Wtf?
‘No, actually,’ I want to reply. ‘I’m going to Mordor.’
In reality I brightly replied ‘Greece,’ because I’m only rude when I’m drunk, or not paying attention. (Which probably amounts to the same thing.)
When I was at the doctor’s a few months ago, a neighbour came into the waiting room and said, ‘Hey! How are you?’ (Desired answer: I’ve got bubonic plague. Actual answer, Oh, I’m fine. You?’)
Why do we ask stupid questions? Why do people look at a new baby and ask, ‘Is he good?’ To which again, you want to reply, ‘No, he’s been inside for gbh.’
When two people meet in hell, one of them is bound to ask the other, ‘Hot enough for you?’ And when Captain Scott was trudging to the North Pole, I’d be prepared to bet a passing Eskimo greeted him with a, ‘Hi Bob! Cold enough for you?’
I was smugly seething about all this, because of course, I never ask stupid questions – until I remembered that last week, when a friend said they were going on holiday, I asked: ‘Anywhere interesting?’
She answered in much the same way as I had done, but I can’t remember where it was, (not that interesting, then) so not only did I ask a pointless question, I didn’t bother listening to the answer.
But maybe, that’s just it – we’re not looking for detailed answers. We are just registering an interest in someone we know; a sort of Facebook like. Which means I can now meet any daft question with the newly standard answer lol. Although, is that rude?
Writer's notebook 
Hahahaha. Brilliant. My particular nightmare is being trapped in the barber’s chair for one of my quarterly haircuts and them saying, “Going anywhere on holiday?!!” etc etc and me longing to be rude, and saying something like “Broadmore” before clamping my teeth round his wrist and being carted off for a soothing night in the local police station cells.
I did work for an American company some years ago where the dictatorial boss was collected from his home each morning by a taxi. ( I don’t know either ) and when the driver said something along the lines of “Had any good affairs recently?” he replied “No conversation!” When the driver attempted a second question he repeated “No conversation” and the ride descended into blissful silence: oh to be a man of power!!
Posted by Peter Wells aka Countingducks | July 24, 2018, 3:01 pmYes, I’d like to try that order on my family sometime. I’m not sure they’d take any notice, though.
Posted by elainecanham | July 24, 2018, 7:21 pm