You're Not Welcome, Apparently

OK I know I'm a language snob, but c'mon. When was the last time you went into a restaurant or retail establishment and said "thank you" or "thanks" and received an appropriate response? In my mind, an appropriate response is "you're welcome." The creative among you might even come up with "my pleasure" or "think nothing of it" which would also be music to my ears. If you do hear things like this, it's likely from someone old enough to be a parent. The American casual conversation has been dumbed down to frustrating levels.

Since when was "no problem" an appropriate answer? Since never! Why mention a nonexistent problem when I'm thanking you for an uneventful but successful cash register encounter?

"No problem" becomes even more ridiculous when there WAS actually a problem and the customer service person helped to solve it. The week before the band camp trip, two Target employees collaborated to find the price for the sleeping bag I wanted to buy and to generate and print a bar code for it so the cashier would be able to ring it up for me. This entire process took close to half an hour, as the line at Guest Services built up behind me. How did the conversation end? You guessed it. "No problem." Sigh.

My lovely friend J had mentioned a while back that I really should look up a movie called "Idiocracy" because it had a lot of funny bits. I found it in the library on Saturday, so I borrowed the DVD. Luke Wilson plays Joe Average America who's accidentally kept in a military time capsule for 500 years, and wakes up to find out that America's become progressively more stupid as a society, with terrifying results. He drops into a hospital after he regains consciousness, where he's seen by a doctor who looks like he's just staggered out of Margaritaville and who gives the official diagnosis that Joe's sh&t is all f%$#@'d up. A contrived screwball comedy, to be sure, but 500 years is a long time to creep downhill from "no problem."