What’s the best response to intrusive questions from supermarket checkout staff, now that they have been trained to ask personal questions rather than chat about the weather? I’m a middle-aged woman and am at a loss about how to respond to the youth who regularly asks me whether I’ve ‘got any nice plans for tonight’. Yesterday the woman at the checkout asked if I lived locally. This was verbal garbage. The supermarket is part of an out-of-town shopping centre – there is nothing local except the shops. Please, please, just ask me if it’s raining out, then we can have a nice meaningless British conversation rather than pretend to be friends. I’m beginning to construct an alter ego and may claim to be an astrophysicist from Hawaii next time I’m challenged.
Anna Ashmole, Peebles, Tweeddale
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