Yesterday this guy on the street asked me, right out of the blue, "Are you alright?" Actually, I had to inquire back of him twice — "I beg your pardon?" "Say what?" — before I understood what he was saying.
"Oh ... yeah, I'm good," I replied. It wasn't until about two hours later when it dawned on me that he was asking if I wanted to buy some drugs. And not until an hour after that that I realized he probably understood my reply to mean, "Yes, I already have plenty of drugs."
So the next time someone asks me, for no apparent reason, "Are you alright?" I'm going to answer, "No, thank you." Of course it doesn't make any sense, but it satisfies all the clandestine assumptions.
I would have misunderstood his comment too.
ReplyDeleteIt's strange, but this popped up after a search for 'am I naive' on Google.