Compatibility screening is going too far

Humans are odd folks. Thousands of years of evolution - physical and social - and we end up with people who can talk for ages without saying anything worth mentioning (shooting for a little irony there). Quite often, this will usually take place via a telephone call - especially when you've run out of real news to impart to a relative and you then spend the next quarter of an hour saying 'goodbye'.

It also happens a lot when you bump into someone you know and go through the standard phrases, such as "Oh my god, how long has it been?" and "Alright mate - how's it going?"* Me and my colleagues are guilty of taking this to a highly ridiculous degree - I work in a warehouse and we are, quite understandably, often seeing each other throughout the day. The thing is, we'll often treat each encounter like we haven't met for some time. With one workmate, I ask him "Hello there - did you have a nice weekend?" regardless of what day of the week it is.

Yes, I'm nuts.

There's one commonly-used meeting phrase I have yet to mention - for good reason. Julie and myself often engage in the 'just-met' banter when we're out and about. This time, we were in a shop, queuing to pay and then Julie initiated this exchange....

Bear in mind we were in the middle of a shop queue at this point. I'll admit to having been completely flummoxed by Julie's comeback, although I'm not sure what got me more; what she meant to say or what she actually said...

**EDIT**
Sorry about this folks, I forgot that not everyone may know the acronyms VD or VDU
VD clinic = somewhere that treats people suffering from venereal diseases.
VDU = Visual Display Unit (ie a computer monitor)

*As Terry Pratchett once noted, all these empty phrases mean are "Hello, I'm alive and so are you"