Apparently this is how Canadians say, “Danger: Electricity”; Grandville Island, Vancouver : August 2003
By my observations, there are subsets of people in our culture.
- Those who say “Hello” or “Good morning”
- Those who gleefully say “Hello” or “Good morning”
- Those who smile in greeting
- Those who say absolutely nothing
- Those who say absolutely nothing while giving you a cold, hard, lifeless stare
I’m usually a subset #3, responding quite happily to subsets #1 and #2. Sometimes, though, I can achieve subset #1, usually only managing a “Morning” instead of a full “Good morning.” It’s the people in subsets #4 and #5 who work my last nerve (reference ala 1989).
Like the woman I encountered on my morning walk/jog yesterday whom I greeted with my best subset #1 “Hello!” only to receive a huge subset #5 in return. She was pushing a baby stroller. How can a woman pushing a cute little baby in a stroller be so incredibly unkind and unresponsive? It’s just not right. And it was pretty darn defeating. Good thing I was at the end of my walk.
So which subset are you?