Picture the scene; you walk into a store to get foreign currency for that long-awaited trip of yours. You approach the counter, go through the formalities, and then the cashier looks up from behind the counter and says it. What does she say?
She says: “so… are you going somewhere nice?”
It’s perhaps the epitemy of awful small talk; a question somehow imprinted on the human brain, and by all means, if you’re a normal person, you probably just answer it and move on with your life. We do not do that.
Think the question through for a second.
Of course you’re going somewhere nice, or else you wouldn’t have booked a holiday there in the first place. Or, if alternatively you’re heading off for work or even for a family funeral, do you really want to be talking about that? And do they really want you to tell them that? What are they going to do with that information?
At best, you say yes, name your destination and both of you nod in acknowledgement, bringing you back to small talk square one. At worst, you end up waiting out the rest of your transaction in the excruciating horror of unspoken awkwardness.
We thought it was about time we exposed this question as the social plague it is – and provided you with a few alternative responses to use next time you hear it, just to make the person behind the counter think that little bit harder about asking it again.
1) “No, My Drug Dealer Only Takes Euros.”
2) “F*ck Off, You’re Not Invited.”
