Dear Kid,

“WOW! This is Fan-TAS-tic! Thank you SO MUCH!!!”

The words gush out as we open presents and they are lovely to hear. Well, they are lovely to hear if the gift giver is in the room. Actually, they are lovely to hear even if the gift giver isn’t in the room, but the gift giver can’t hear the thank you if not present (pun intended).

I really hope you followed that.

Enter: The Thank You Note.

The first Thank You Note was written by Joe Neanderthal. He wrote it to a Saber Tooth Tiger who had generously eaten Joe’s friend Blorg rather than Joe. It looked something like this:

Interestingly, that particular Saber Tooth Tiger never ate Joe. Joe assumed that this was because of the Thank You Note (in reality, it was because Blorg caused the Saber Tooth Tiger to have a very upset stomach from which he died).

From then on, Joe insisted that everyone write thank you notes. Mrs. Joe Neanderthal was so surprised she forgot to be annoyed.

Love, Mom