U.S. can refer to America or it can be slang for "useless".

In America, the star of the relatively funny story coming up would be known as a Valley girl, in the UK, as an Essex girl.

So that we all feel included, and so that I can do justice to the star, let's affectionately call her U.S. Essex girl.

A while back, we went mad and agreed to go out for a drink with a couple of friends. The conversation was fun and interesting and grown up. I choose the word "grown-up" carefully, because the intellectual level plummeted when we were joined by a mutual acquaintance and his wife.

The newly arrived wife seemed very bubbly and good fun, but after about 5 minutes, Mrs Ed and I are looking at each other thinking wtf, what an airhead. She seemed to be 45 going on 13. By the end of the evening, I would have to downgrade even that cruel assessment by a couple of years.

US Essex girl likes pink

Someone said, "Hey look at the sunset, it is really pink and spectacular." U.S. Essex girl clapped her hands and squealed, "Oooh, awesome, look, it's all pink."

Erm, OK! Mrs Ed and I are looking into space trying not to get eye contact with each other. One false look and we'd have been on the floor laughing at the woman's ludicrous enthusiasm.

Moving the conversation along, someone else said they really enjoyed this time of year because of the longer days. Everyone understood that she was referring to the feelgood factor of light mornings and late summer evenings. Of course, U.S. Essex girl got the wrong end of the stick - again - and asked all enthusiastic, "So, what time did you get up this morning?"

Uh? It was like one of those awkward moments when a foreigner doesn't quite understand the question. "Giselle, where did you go on holiday?" And Giselle tries to look intelligent and replies, "Yes". You normally try to say something, so as not to make the Giselles of this world feel stupid. In this case, I was thinking, "I can't be bothered explaining. She's just fricking stupid!!"

The US Essex girl gets her head around menial work

Finally, someone was explaining how fascinating, (but simple) their job was. They conducted surveys of marine life on remote islands. The work sounded glamorous, but they insisted it was simple, counting seabirds and sticking tags on seals' ears. Everyone except U.S. Essex girl understood that her job required her to be methodical rather than brilliant. (If you ask me, it sounded like great work, if you could get it.)

Never one to miss an opportunity to advance the conversation with a valid or original thought, U.S. Essex girl squealed, "Oooh, that's so great, I do admire you, I could never do that sort of job."

You could feel the relief at the prospect of some valid chit chat. At last!

Wrong!

"Why couldn't you do that?" asked the marine surveyor, obviously bemused that counting birds could pose problems for anyone with more than half a brain.

"Ooooh, all that attention to detail ..."

For fuck's sake, how detailed is the menial process of stapling tags to seal ears? Does math get too complex once your bird count reaches double figures? Where did this ditzy woman come from? Was is it time for her to take her curve ball back to the left field?

The revealing truth about US Essex girl

On our way home, Mrs Ed explained that U.S. Essex girl was in faxct a typical valley girl, a concept I had heard of, but never experienced first hand before. She said that the species are famed for having, amongst other things, no original thought in their head, but they do have this incredible ability to perm the concept of "awesome" a thousand different ways. No kidding.

Thinking about UK Essex girls, I was about to ask if the lady in question also wore white stiletto heels, ever dyed her hair peroxide blonde, was promiscuous, loud, prone to verbal vulgarity, and socialised at downmarket nightclubs in large groups - but I decided to hold my tongue.

Do you have a pet valley girl in your town? Do share!!!!