By ANNE DONNELL

I was thinking about you the other day and decided I’d try to come up with a topic for your column. It’s not far from graduation and summer weddings, so here’s your question. Is it all right to e-mail thank-you notes? Everyone seems so busy, and we have relaxed so many things, so perhaps we’re relaxing this?

-Much Younger than You (A Former Student of Yours!)

By ANNE DONNELL

I was thinking about you the other day and decided I’d try to come up with a topic for your column. It’s not far from graduation and summer weddings, so here’s your question. Is it all right to e-mail thank-you notes? Everyone seems so busy, and we have relaxed so many things, so perhaps we’re relaxing this?

-Much Younger than You (A Former Student of Yours!)

“Relaxing” good manners leads to the mess we’re encountering on roads and in stores and on “help” phone lines. Take that last one -- “help” phone lines will tie up your days, land phones, cell phones, arthritic fingers, hips, arms, knees before “Bill” from a faraway clime offers “answers.” Then you’ve got to do self examination like some monk because you’re showing paralyzing signs of extreme dislike for fellow humans, especially the ones operating “help” centers. Your blood pressure is shrieking, “Danger, Danger.” And what’s probably still not working? Your computer or printer or FAX or whatever. (Thank you, American youth, some of you now approaching, though unwillingly and haltingly, maturity, because this has been going on for years, thank you for adding the special surly use of the old standby whatever, a special use which has now seeped into the speech of the common man.) 

Bad manners do lead to frustration and anger on the part of the beholders/recipients; the practitioners seem fine. That’s why those who are contemplating sending thank-you notes by e-mail shouldn’t consult themselves about it. Naturally they’ll approve of their own easy, energy saving idea which allows for more time in the tanning booth, mellowing out with some good music on those little things people carry around stuck in their ears. More time to watch TV reality shows and pick up wardrobe tips involving halter tops or thongs. More time to think up tattoo ideas (how about a vampire eating a grammar book?) and find skin space. More time to sass your parents when they suggest you do your own laundry. You know I can go on and on.

The answer to our QP of T’s (Question Person of Today) query? NO. Acquire some kind of clean, tasteful stationery with envelopes. Buy stamps. Find a pen and use it (black ink is best and, yes, someone else firmly suggested that.) Also construct your correspondence using the parts of the letter taught diligently in school systems through the years. So no one’s dear to you but the  person with whom you ride around in a truck at night – write “Dear ____” anyway.  So the present wasn’t anything you wanted. Who are you, anyway? Princess of the world? Duke of the universe? Show gratitude. On paper. In your handwriting.

Someone went to trouble and expense to give you a gift. Take a little time, ink, paper to show appreciation.

A kinder, gentler world can begin with you.

A SPOT OF BRIGHTNESS IN WHAT APPEARS TO BE A BLEAK WORLD, AND I’M NOT TALKING VOLCANO DUST ALTHOUGH THAT ISN’T HELPING MATTERS:  The Amazon Kindle (electronic reading device) customer service department is spot on great – prompt, helpful, effective. If you’ve talked to me in the last couple of years you’ve heard me mention that my husband and I have our own Kindles and LOVE – that’s not too strong a word here --  them. We give enthusiastic, but unpaid and unstoppable, demonstrations. 

ONLINE DEPARTMENT (Thanks, C.G.) “Ponderisms” • I used to eat a lot of natural foods until I learned that most people die of natural causes. • There are two kinds of pedestrians: the quick and the dead. • Life is sexually transmitted. • Healthy is merely the slowest possible rate at which one can die. • The differences between a rut and a grave is the length and depth. • Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dying of nothing. • Have you noticed since almost everyone has a camcorder these days no one talks about seeing UFOs as they used to? • Whenever I feel blue, I start breathing again. • All of us could take a lesson from the weather. It  pays no attention to criticism. • In the 60's, people took acid to make the world weird. Now the world is weird and people take Prozac to make it normal. • How is it one careless match can start a forest fire, but it takes a whole box to start a campfire? • Who was the first person to look at a cow and say, “'I think I'll squeeze these dangly things and drink whatever comes out?”• If corn oil is made from corn, and vegetable oil is made from vegetables, then what is baby oil made from? • Do illiterate people get the full effect of Alphabet Soup? • Does pushing the elevator button more than once make it arrive faster? • Why doesn't glue stick to the inside of the bottle?

BW (Bigtime Word) bibelot  – a small curio, perhaps rare. That would be like thank-you notes, right? Small and rare.