There's a problem with overworked phrase

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By Bill Wundram | Wednesday, July 30, 2008 2:05 AM CDT | () comments

YOU can feel reasonably certain that you can’t go through a day in our Quad-Cities without hearing the phrase “no problem” — probably at the most inappropriate times.

Example: You’re in a restaurant and ask for more water and the server says, “no problem.”

Of course it’s no problem. That’s what they’re paid to do.

I think it is a condescending phrase. It is a grumpy reply. It is not a happy rejoinder.

At one of the best burger joints in the Quad-Cities, I politely told a server that my ketchup bottle was empty. She said, “No problem,” as if it could possibly be.

So many times, there is an inflection in the voice, a silent sighing, “It’s an extra thing for me to do, but it’s no problem.”

I called an auto dealership with a request for an individual. Instead of saying, “I’ll connect you,” the operator said, “no problem.” Again, what was the problem?

During an idling moment, I was talking this over with Mike Whalen, the Quad-City entrepreneur, restaurateur, etc. He doesn’t like the retort, “no problem.”

“It’s like a compliance to answer, ‘no problem’, to a simple request,” says Whalen. He agrees that when you ask for more iced tea, the server should simply say, “All right,” or “Yes.”

I expect this complaint to go nowhere. It will join, “What can I bring you guys?” to a table of only women. That “guys” business is here to stay, and I shall bring it up no more.

A big, broad village

Sometimes I like to reduce the sprawl of the Quad-Cities into an intimate, personable, village, like the night that Don and Barbara Pearson of Coal Valley were without power, along with so many thousands of others. At the Fortune Garden in Bettendorf, they were telling the hostess how they were tired and hungry. Someone overheard. When they went to the counter to pay, that someone had picked up their check. Another example of “pay it forward.”

HANG IT UP: Jeffrey Huss, Davenport tells, about a 9-year-old named Elaine Massey being given a free solar clothes dryer during an Earth Fair with the entreaty, “Dry your clothes without electricity.” The kit included a rope and wooden clips, but no instructions. So, Elaine’s grandmother set up the apparatus and told the youngster: “In the old days, we used to call these contraptions clotheslines.”

THE REMINISINCE of long lost downtown grocery stores reminds Leonard Geifman, Bettendorf, of the days he spent working with his grandfather, George, in his store across the street from what is now the Adler. George was one of those grocers who not only owned the store, but stacked shelves and trimmed the bottoms off aging heads of lettuce so they would look fresh and new. “I put together telephone orders and personally delivered them to customers who had apartments in the Blackhawk Hotel, the Mississippi Hotel, the St. James and the old Vale Apartments,” says Leonard.

“THE stories about your dog, Polly, and her death, brings tears to my eyes,” says Margie Chalus. “I love that you have Polly’s collar hanging by your back door. Our 18-year-old dog, Charlie, is no longer with us. Charlie’s collar hangs by our back door, too.”

FRONT PORCHES reminds Don Schoenie of the old family porch, and a funny little tale. “One time, a cousin named Reuben visited us. My mother made lemonade as we sat on the porch. In her nervousness to be a good hostess, she said, ‘Would you like some reubenade, Lemon?’ Reuben didn’t hear well and happily accepted.”

Bill Wundram can be contacted at (563) 383-2249 or bwundram@qctimes.com. Comment on this column at qctimes.com.