Thank you notes

As a kid I had to write thank you notes. I hated trying to think up things to say to Auntie X whom I didn't even know. Each year her hankies, as pretty as they were, were assigned to a drawer with the hankies from the year before and the year before and the ...

I expected my daughter to write thank you notes. Before she could write, she had to do a thank you drawing. She couldn't use the gift till she did unless she didn't like the gift. Than she had to use the gift until the stamp was placed on the note's envelope. No one ever gave her hankies. She got some neat stuff over the years.

When my former Swiss companion and I went to dinner, he explained a thank you note was in order. If I may have had trouble with correct French, I never had a problem with raving about the food and the hospitality.

Job interviews required a quick thank you note.

When I loaned my French apartment to a family, their two little boys left thank you drawings.

However, the custom is fading of handwritten thank you notes. Often an email or a Jacquie Lawson digital card will be sent and that's more than okay.

When I sent an eight-year old two francs for her piggy bank that she was using to save up for a special doll, I received a thank you note by email. She said that she was surprised I had listened to her about the doll, so many grownups don't listen. I see her mother behind the writing of the note, not the content, but the child is a real sweetheart so maybe, maybe not.

It is not that I do things to get a thank you note. To me the notes are a form of courtesy that someone expended energy to do something kind for someone else. I know I sound like a COW, Cranky Old Woman, when I say I like courtesy like the old days.

That is why I was so touched when I received the card above in the mail. We had gone over a screen script for the two young writers who made the card. I had cautioned them, screen plays were not my strong point. I did say I could comment if the characters, dialog and plot worked.

They immediately emailed me their thanks, but then they followed up with the card featuring a lookalike Sherlock.

Appreciation is never amiss. Even for hankies.