9/06/2005 04:16:00 PM|||James O'Malley|||

Well, THAT was embarassing. What? Wait and see.

Heather's gone back to school now, but luckily enough, had a few lessons free, so came to see me. Long story short, we did some slacking, and I made fun of her meat eating.

"The teachers that used to live two doors away from you until recently have some chickens now!"
"It's a shame they didn't have them before- we could have fed them when they go on holiday... it's a good job they don't live near you though, as otherwise they'd feed you".

It was funnier at the time.

But anyway, just as we were leaving my house, as Heather needed to get back for a Chemistry lesson with one of the aforementioned teachers, we noticed the window cleaner outside. I posed the question, "should I attempt to engage him in conversation?".

I was concerned about how formal I should be- I mean, he's a window cleaner operating in the informal economy, is "Hello?" to formal? Would it sound like I'm "taking the piss"? I never say "Hi", in real life (as opposed to online, where it's my standard greeting), and "Alright?" would go a number of my beliefs.

This lead me to explain to Heather why I hate it when people say "Alright?" as a greeting- if you're not sure what I'm talking about, it's what people are saying when they say "ooh-ight".

My main problem with the phrase is that I don't know how to respond - are they saying it as a substitution for "Hello!", or is it the first two exchanges of a conversation rolled into one? "Hello, how are you [aka are you alright] ?". This is particularly puzzling when I'm at work- I get hundreds of customers come past me every hour, each of which I greet with a "Hello!".

The question is- if they respond "alright?", are they really caring enough to erm... care about my wellbeing? Should I just smile politely and get on with scanning their cat food and bags of nails, or respond "I'm not bad... how are you?". I mean, if you look at the question posed, "Are you alright?", then I should respond, and indeed have done in the past, with a "Yes", as in "Yes, I am alright". If they can't make the effort to construct a proper sentence, then I'm not going to construct a proper answer. The worst bit about responding with a "Yes", is when I say "how are you?", as a follow up, out of politeness, and they give a sarcastic "Yehsth", which is pronounced "yes", but with a slightly more drawn-out "e". That's not even a response to my question!

The most awkward situation like this is when the person I'm talking to, whoever that maybe, in whatever situation, says "Hello, alright?"- they're either greeting me twice, or asking about my state of wellbeing. I never know how to respond.

I'm not mad. Heather said that she sometimes thinks the same thing too- although I suspect it may because she was scared.

But anyway, we left my house to go back through town, and the window cleaner was standing by my neighbours front window... "Hello, alright?", he says. He must have heard me! Who'd have thought a window cleaner would be malicious enough to do such a thing?! Yes, maybe he was being friendly, but it was done with a sort of "I'm treating you with contempt" face.

I've been owned, by a window cleaner.

|||112602138023884538|||"Hello, alright?"