This morning, someone asked me how I was and I said, ‘Yeah, good’. She then asked how the family was and I said, ‘Yeah, all good. We’re busy, but everyone is good’.
How are you? How you going? How’s things?
Such silly questions to ask when the expectation is a single-word response, or a short sentence at most. Do we not think it’s time we stopped asking this of people?
Because the real answer is not so much good but somewhere in the middle, along the lines of, ‘Reasonably OK, except I feel like I’m coming down with something and I’ve been eating too much cake so I do feel a bit heavy and the other adult in the house is medium also, albeit a bit grumpy because the dog keeps eating the outside couches but then again the footy is on this weekend so, you know, and one of the kids actually took the initiative of having a shower this morning without me yelling at her, and the other is finally showing interest in learning to read, which is a huge relief because she is almost eight. So yeah, all good.’
That’s the detailed report from this house, and that’s as big and as interesting as it gets because we’re in the thick of winter and simply just wading through the routine of the week and there’s nothing wrong with any of it except it’s just not that noteworthy.
How are we? Well, if you really want to know and I’m pretty sure you don’t but now you’ve asked, we’re all hanging out for a holiday, the oldest has asthma so no one is sleeping and did I mention my back is playing up again? You’d rather hear, ‘Yeah, good’, right?
The English don’t ask how you are, they ask if you’re all right, but in a tone Australians might reserve for moments of incredible tragedy, like if someone had just crashed their car or survived a nasty divorce. One can only respond defensively, like, ‘Why, do I look sad, or freshly obese, or what exactly do you know that I don’t?’.
Yet at least the question calls for a specific answer. You’re either all right or you’re not all right, and then there’s room for more talk, because either way you probably should explain. I’m not all right because I drank too many pints of lager last night and ate chips with curry sauce, or I am all right because I’ve just stocked up at the offie and I found out they’re about to rerun Jason and Kylie’s wedding on Channel 5.
There’s not a lot of conversational openings in, ‘Yeah, good’. As an answer it is also a deceit, because humans can’t be all good. There’s always a part of us that is also a little bit not good, like tired, cross, running late, worried about something or hanging out for pizza.
Which is why I am hereby suggesting we actually stop asking people how they are, especially if we expect only a one-word response. We need to either be more specific with our everyday greetings, or not bother at all.
Why not, ‘Let’s discuss the thinking processes involved in the outfit you’ve selected for today’, or ‘Could you possibly share with me the viewing decisions you made last night?’, or ‘Can you offer any justifiable complaints about today’s weather?’, or ‘How is Myki working for you on this day where we are also joined onboard by people who may just be ticket sheriffs?’.
No one can answer ‘Yeah, good’, to any of these.
