I try not to spend too much time on this blog decrying the decline of civilization in general, because basically, I’d probably never stop bitching about it. Telling a story that may illustrate that is one thing; writing whole posts where I moan and groan about things in general — well, I do try to avoid it, otherwise, again, I’d never stop. But I’m grumpy and hormoniacal today. Yes, you heard me: Hormoniacal. MB made up that term out of, oh, his deep abiding love for me, I’m sure — in all my biological variations.
So. I’m bitching a bit today. Whatevs. Perhaps later, I’ll take a pill.
~ So we’re at Target. Or I should say, we are at Target in bodily form, but one of us has taken his brain away to protect his sanity. Fine. Do what you gotta do, I say. We have to use the escalator. I approach, am about to step on, when a random dude appears to my left and steps in my way. Because he nearly bumps me, I back off — uhm, as all good gentlemen do — so that he can get on before me. Which he does not hesitate to do. (MB had his back turned and didn’t witness this. Again, his brain was elsewhere in a protective bubble.)
You know, I’m old-fashioned in certain ways. I LIKE the differences between men and women. I LIKE acknowledging that they exist. I LIKE the little niceties that women used to get from men. I LIKE those small moments of courtesy, of courtliness. I’m old-fashioned and, I guess, OLD enough to remember when something like that wouldn’t have happened — a woman stepping back so a man can go ahead of her. Why did I do that? Why did HE do that? Is everything just hopelessly upside down from what I remember back when I was a whippersnapper, etc.? WAHHH.
~ When did the phrase “No problem” replace “You’re welcome”? The server refills your iced tea. You say, “Thank you”; the server says, “No problem.” The UPS guy delivers a package. You say, “Thank you.” He says, “No problem.” You iron your husband’s shirt. He says, “Thank you.” You say, “No problem.”
I do this all the time — say “No problem” instead of “You’re welcome.” I literally cannot think of the last time I said “You’re welcome” to someone. Weird. At Boheme, I was constantly telling customers that things were “no problem,” frequently the people who were the biggest pains in my beleaguered bottom. What’s up with that? I mean, doesn’t saying “No problem” carry a vague implication that the thing you were thanked for might very well have been a problem in some way? Some unspoken way? So should a server refilling your tea say “no problem”? I mean, how is it a problem, generally? Unless the customer is a total abusive jerk, it’s not really a problem, is it? Maybe it’s just become a veiled expression of all our latent collective hostility, said with a smile. Or maybe I’m making too much of this, but I say it all the time. I don’t say “You’re welcome.” I say “No problem.” Why? Why? Well, probably because I’m a hater and they’re not welcome. This is all I can surmise in my current state of mind. Why can’t we just say “You’re welcome” anymore?
I think there are times when saying “No problem” is appropriate — perhaps when someone goes out of his way for you, doing something that might actually be inconvenient for him in some way. For instance, I drop my purse and the contents go flying. A stranger comes up to help me gather up all the pieces. He basically stops what he’s doing, goes out of his way to help me. So I say, “Thank you” and he says, “No problem,” assuring me that what he stopped to do for me was not too huge an inconvenience for him. “You’re welcome” would have worked here, too, but the “no problem” was given as an assurance that he was, if not happy, at least willing, to help me. But when a server notices my iced tea is low and refills the glass, unasked, does that warrant a “no problem”?
Are we over-offering assurances or trying to keep hostility at bay?
~ Although, it’s possible that I spend too much time thinking about the niggling little things in life.
~ Finally, pardon me, but why are there ants in my freezer? Live ants? Crawling around? There’s nothing in there that would interest them. They aren’t crawling on anything in there — they just wander around the perimeter, blindly following and climbing on each other. Basically, a freezing miniature version of the Israelites wandering aimlessly in the wilderness. The last two days, whenever I open the freezer, I have either been battling live crawlers or wiping up their tiny shrunken carcasses. I am now just avoiding the freezer entirely. Because it’s vexing. And disturbing. And it makes me feel a little bit like a hobo.
I really want someone to make it all go away, but I’m afraid they’d fix it, I’d thank them, and they’d say “no problem.”
Life is hard, pippa.
“I LIKE the differences between men and women.” Thank you for saying this, it’s not said enough.
Brian,
Agreed!
Oh wait, I forgot to ask in my last very brief comment…
Escalators in Target? Perhaps this will expose my redneck, backwater, flyover country tendencies, but I have never been to a Target with escalators. Please enlighten me!
(Although I did go to the made-famous-by-Miracle-On-34th-Street-Macy’s in New York City this summer, and they still have all the old original wooden escalators which are very neat to look at and go up and down multiple times and touch and imagine that Santa Claus himself ran his hands over these handrails many moons ago…)
Katie — It’s just a two-floor Target. Nothing fancy. Still just Target.
With escalators, though?
when did common courtesy get left by the wayside? It is unfortunate….wish I knew how we go about getting it back.
I’m with you on the ants thing. Had a surprise party for my hubby this weekend and one of the children spilled a full cup of soda near the front door. Next morning we have what looked like a whole ant colony right inside our door! They should be gone soon though since I put out the ant baits….hehehehehe.
sarahk — Yes, escalators. And an elevator. You guys seem so surprised! You need to enlighten ME. 😉 I don’t know how else people would get to the second floor and take their carts, too! You push your cart into a track next to the escalator and it goes up with you. This works better than stairs, I think. Believe me, I’d much prefer to have it all on one floor. Having stuff I need to get to — like cleaning supplies — on the second floor is a pain in the butt, actually. The whole thing is awkwardly laid out. That’s partly why MB takes his brain away when he’s there.
Well, here in the benighted East, Targets and Wal-Marts and such are almost always one floor only. In fact, I can’t say I’ve ever seen a two-story Target in any state I’ve been in on the seaboard (granted that’s confined to the Route 95 corridor). Even the Target in the White Plains mall in NY is not two floors – IIRC, it’s ON the second floor but is itself laid out on one floor only. (I could be wrong.)
I have a confession: you write so well and wittily about your disgruntlements that I laugh and become less disgruntled myself. I’m not laughing at your frustrations, but mostly at your delightfully-worded consternation (and mayble a little at myself).
And darn it I keep forgetting to correct my name! Fie on me!
NF or Faramir — If I remember, back in the days of yore, our Target once was a legit, fancy-schmancy dept. store; hence, the escalator.
Oh, and I was wondering about your identity crisis. 😉 Although, I think it’s good to chime in as Faramir once in a while — if only to remind the adorable sarahk that, sadly, her best-thing-ever smack this year was all for naught. Boo hoo.
Oh, golly. I hate the whole rudeness thing too.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve nearly been knocked down in the local wal-mart by someone who has one of those Borg implants screwed into their ears, so they’re talking away with their Invisible Friend, which instantly makes all the other human beings in their vicinity NOT EXIST ANYMORE. (Except I find that for me, it’s more often women than men who are enormously self-absorbed and not-noticing-of-their-fellow-human).
Grr.
Love the post. If I may –
1. We reach the second floor by levitation in these parts.
2. “No problem” really has had its day; if a simple ‘You’re welcome” is easily overlooked, one can always jog the memory cells by trying a variation – “You are so very welcome”, or “My pleasure”, or whatever. But not “No problem”, or worse yet, the faux-Hispanic, “No problemo!” – which should be punishable by wet noodle floggings.
3. You also note that people seldom say, Yes, or No ? They tend to say, Absolutely, or Definitely or even You Betcha!
4. The guy on the escalator was a jerk and you could have simply pulled him by his belt loop so that he tumbled backward down the escalator. As you looked at his crumpled form receding into the distance, you could ahve shouted, “Hey! No problemo!”
5. It is a well known fact that ants try to enter freezers during the summer months, owing to the fact that they cannot afford vacations to cooler places. This is no reason to look down on them.
Thanks for a delightful post!
Your MB’s bubble method is also useful when taking public transportion, IMHO.
As for 2-story Targets, pretty sure there’s one in Northern VA. There will be one in suburban PA next year (another former anchor store conversion); there were talks of one going up in the mall near where I used to work–again, a conversion of an existing building. I believe they were scrapped but you never know.
Have the ants decided to move out of Antarctica yet?