So I just got off the phone to my job agent. Three seconds into the phone call he'd rendered me useless, turned into a momentary vegetable. This was a stark reminder of this strong weapon the English have against us.
I'd been warned about it as soon as I arrived but didn't quite understand or pay it much significance. It wasn't long though before I'd fallen victim to a very well-timed attack. I was bounding sprightly down the stairs one morning in the house I was staying when my flatmate hit me with it and I just froze, staring.
What did she do? She'd said 'You alright?'. That's all; a simple greeting equivalent to 'how are you?' or 'how you going?'. But this is one that seems to tweak the Australian brain into submission. Not once when I've been presented with this greeting have I been able to utter a single word in reply.
It's the unfamiliarity of the greeting. Their ambiguous way of expressing it. The speed with which they fire it at you.
I'll consider myself properly assimilated when I can reply 'Good, thanks, yourself?' without pausing enough to create awkward silence.
