Heyyyy, howya doin'?

When I first visited America, I thought, “Oh that’s so nice! The people here are so friendly – they keep saying hi to each other!”

After two weeks of that, I’d cross the street to avoid saying hi. I’d pretend to get an SMS just before I passed somebody. And I’d take three flights of stairs rather than get into that torture chamber – the lift. Sorry, the elevator.

“Hey, howya doing?”

“All well thanks.” Now shut up. I don’t know you, you don’t me, just shut up.

“The weather’s been great hasn’t it?”

Oh frigging fuckwort. “Yeah fantastic.” Come on bastard lift door, close and get on with it.

“I’ve been out all day walking – it’s wonderful.”

Two more floors. “Oh yeah? Sounds great.”

“Oh yes. There are some great walking routes over by the lake.”

Any into the damn lake? “I should go there sometime.”

“Oh you should!”

“Oh thank the lord, it’s my floor. “Okay, see you then.”

“Have a nice night!”

Yeah, and up yours too.

Awww. You might think. Awwwww. Such a nice man. How can you think so rudely of him? See, the thing is, it doesn’t take long to see through all this friendliness. The lady at the supermarket checkout counter? So friendly, so hearty. “Heyyyy. Howyadoing? Everything goin’ okay? Great day today!”

And then, the instant you show some kind of need – for example if you’re not sure how to work the discount card swipe machine, or you stumble over which one’s a dime and which one’s a quarter – WHABABP!!! The friendly door SLAMS shut. Her face goes all hard. She acts as if you’ve just asked her for a huge favour – like, “I don’t have money for a taxi – can I borrow your car?” And then it’s all you can do to rush through the unpleasantness and get the hell out of there.

How does it slam shut?

WHABABP!!!

I knew you’d like that one.

Anyway, the point is, after I returned I LOVED the fact that I could get into a lift and nobody would even smile. I wanted to EMBRACE the rude watchman at my office who wouldn’t say good morning even if you lit a Lakshmi bomb under his bum.

I wanted to KISS the… okay… I wasn’t that happy. But I was happy.