Where did the phrase “Have a nice day.” come from? Like, when you go to check out at the store and the cashier says, “Have a nice day.” Like I didn’t already want to have a nice day. Like I need someone to remind me. It’s a command. “Hey, you better have a nice day today.” Did it start out with someone telling a friend who was having a bad day to have a good one and somehow it just made its way into our supermarkets? What if I don’t want to have a good day? What if I want to have a mediocre day because I’m saving my good day for tomorrow? Or maybe the cashiers their their presence in your day will automatically make your day pleasant. In which case they should say, “You’re welcome.” I don’t know about you, but I wake up everyday with the intention of having a great day, whether I go to the grocery store or not.
I honestly don’t like going to the grocery store. It means I’m spending money on things that are going to disappear in a week so I will have to go back and buy more. So maybe the cashiers are trying to help with your recovery of having to drag yourself to the store. “I know this is the last thing you want to be doing, so have a nice rest of the day and forget about this horrible waste of time.”
This reminds me of the English language taking simple words that mean one thing and making them also mean something completely different and irrelevant. Like, Jesus. It is popularly known as the name of a person or a religious icon, but somehow we have turned it into an exclamation. I am not religious at all so I don’t care how you put it into context, but it’s kind of strange when you think about it. Like when you have an emotion deserving of a spoken word you say some random name or word. Eg: “Oh my god!” or “Shit! Stupid box!” When did these words get here? They are just words like any other. Think about it, it’s just like if you replaced, “What do you think you’re doing!? Jesus!” You said, “What do you think you’re doing!? Pickle!” Pickle is also just a word. “George Williams! That’s a big waffle!”
Just a thought.