Welcome In to the Cult of Perfect
There was a time—long, long ago, before smartphones and pumpkin spice everything—when you walked into a store and the clerk said, “Hi there” or “Can I help you find something?” Maybe, if you were really lucky, “Good morning.”
Now? You’re greeted with “Welcome in.”
Welcome in?
Was I hovering at the threshold like a vampire, waiting for verbal permission to cross the tile and enter the fluorescent glow of your nail salon-slash-vape emporium? I'm fairly certain I already am in. That bell jingled. My foot’s on your rug. We’ve entered the commerce zone. Yet here you are, redundantly re-inviting me to the place I’ve already entered.
Look, I know what it means. I’m not quibbling over intention. It’s friendly. It’s welcoming. But something about “welcome in” feels like trying too hard. It’s the retail equivalent of George H.W. Bush’s immortal, awkwardly robotic line: “Message: I care.” A phrase meant to convey warmth but delivered with all the emotion of a dial tone. You’re trying to connect, but it lands like a bad text from your dentist.
It’s not the only phrase catching my ear lately.
Let’s talk about perfect.
Say you ask a barista for a plain black coffee. The response? “Perfect.”
Buy a movie ticket for the 7:45 show? “Perfect.”
Tell someone your email address? “Perfect.”
Perfect.
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but your use of “perfect” is...well, not. Unless my mundane choices are somehow unlocking a new utopia where climate change is reversed, my back stops hurting, and the nation collectively agrees to delete Facebook, we might want to dial it back.
What’s really happening here is linguistic inflation. The same way “awesome” lost its awe, “perfect” is being hollowed out by repetition. We once reserved “perfect” for rare things: a game with no errors, a soufflé that didn’t collapse, a vacation where nobody cried.
Now it’s the background hum of everyday transactions. Which means when something is actually perfect—a moment of real peace, clarity, connection—it gets lumped in with your half-caff oat milk latte.
I don’t blame younger generations for this. Language mutates. Every era has its filler words and catchphrases. We gave the world “groovy,” “rad,” and “as if.” But maybe—just maybe—we can be a little more mindful before handing out superlatives like breath mints.
Because when everything is perfect, nothing really is. And if it’s all awesome, where does that leave us on the days that are just...okay? Or lousy? Or, say, soul-crushingly average?
I’m not asking for a return to Elizabethan English, but how about a little variety? A “cool,” a “sounds good,” or even a “right on” would break the spell. Hell, I’d take a grunt and a nod if it meant I could stop questioning whether my breakfast sandwich is truly transcendent.
Until then, I’ll be the guy who walks into the shop and replies to “Welcome in” with “Thank you—I feel very inside.” And when told that my parking validation is “perfect,” I’ll smile and say, “Yes, it’s the highlight of my week.”
Because it just might be.