To the nice lady in the elevator this morning, thank you for your thought. However, it wasn’t allergies that was making me sneeze and caused my eyes to water. It was all brought to me by the delicate admixture of day-old lilac, past-its-prime body powder, and Soviet-era floor cleaner, all tied together with just a whiff of freshly-dead rodent, that your body spray added to the atmosphere.

To the crew that put a new roof on our house last week, thank you. You got it done in record time and even cleaned up after yourselves. The roof survived wind and torrential rain over the weekend, and the water stayed outside. I’ll call that a win.

To the writers and actors on strike in Hollywood, thank you for causing my local drive-in theater to show more classic movies rather than the dreck you’ve been cranking out for the past decade. You stay strong and show your solidarity. So long as we get to watch good movies made before most of you graduated from film school, I support you. Stay out there on the picket lines for months, years if you have to, until your most extreme demands are met.

To the hooved critters that roam through my neighborhood, I have provided for you some feed corn and a block of minerals. This is my compromise to keep you out of the garden. If one more raspberry disappears under mysterious circumstances, I will be forced to disregard the intercession of my wife on your behalf and convert you into something to replace the calories you’ve stolen from us.