I spent a lot of my early working years in a retail environment, which included greeting thousands and thousands of people.

Those interactions usually include a standard “Hi, how are you?” Some customers ignored the sentiment and continued to help themselves. Others fully engaged the greeting and responded with a more enthusiastic “Super, how are you?”

Today I was on the other side of an interesting wrinkle in that interchange. I was at Michael’s in Reston, Va., and approached an open register. The girl behind the counter said “Hi, how’s it going?” Having been on that side enough, and rocking somewhat normal manners, I responded with a “I’m great, how are you?”

Her response: “I’m aight.” Now I recognize that many of the Michael’s clientelle are probably a bit older — if I had to guess, I’d say the cashier is 20. She is probably used to very boring greetings and maybe saw in a younger face a chance to drop a slightly hipper response.

I’m not sure it would have worked if she were helping my mom.