On The Second Day of Christmas, My True Love Gave to Me
It’s the day after Christmas. For some of you, this means time to write out a stack of thank you notes. I know a lot of people who avoid writing thank you notes. Their excuses vary, but I like my rocket engineer brother’s excuse of ‘I’m not a good writer’ and ‘Besides, I can’t spell’ (he really can’t – he forged my mom’s name once in school and misspelled it). I’ve decided to help him and his band of left brain thinkers with my very own Mathematical Equation for writing a thank you note, henceforth known as the Quadriley Equation:
ax(squared) + bx + c = Thank You Note
Wherein,
x = The Present
a = “Thank you”
b = The Recipient
c = An additional thoughtful message
For example, my friend gave my son a radio control helicopter and my daughter a Barbie bathing suit.
This means x = helicopter and bathing suit, a = “Thank you,” and b = The Boy and Little No Limit.
Therefore,
ax = “Thank you for the helicopter and bathing suit.”
To square the comment, elaborate further. So,
ax(squared) = “Thank you for the helicopter and bathing suit. We appreciate your thoughtfulness.”
bx = The Boy immediately opened the helicopter and began flying it around. Little No Limit wore her bathing suit when we went to the beach for lunch, but the water was too cold for her to actually get wet.
c = When you visit in March, we can all go down to the beach together and watch her take on the waves in her new suit. By then, The Boy will certainly have mastered all the mechanics of the helicopter and can use it to fend off the birds from attacking you (I still haven’t forgotten the incident with the seagull, ha ha).
Other Relevant Rules/Theorems/Principles:
The Name Rule: Address the card to someone, “Dear Yo’ Mama”
The Adverb Theorem: Less is More. Subtract all uses of the words “so” “very” and “much”
The Rule on Co-Workers: In the case of presents from co-workers, omit variable ‘c’ from the equation, lest you get sued, fired, or both.
The Rule on Neighbors: In the case of neighbors, do not use variable ‘c’ to mention any pending neighborly requests, eg “I just wanted to mention, your dog was barking all night again. Could you do something about that?”
The Typing Principle: Typing = Impersonal
The ‘Close Enough for Government Work’ Theorem: If the length of your thank you note appears too short, double it.
See? Writing thank you notes are as easy as 3.14159265…
No Comments
RSS feed for comments on this post.
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
now this is awesome…
The only time in my life I came close to an anxiety attack, it was over thank-you notes. I was eight months pregnant with my first child, substitute teaching full-time (without prepared lesson plans, thank you very much) for a friend so he could travel for his international adoption, and moving into a the house we just bought. The thing that finally pushed me over the edge was trying to find the addresses for all the thank-you notes for my baby shower.
After all that shaking and hysterical sobbing, I have not written a thank-you note since. But kudos to you for the discipline (you are welcome to write mine, too).
I love the t-shirt.
Hysterical…so freakin’ true..and I need that t-shirt..
I’m afraid there are so many excuses for failing to send thanks and I’m determined my kids won’t give in to any of them. First thing this morning, writing thank you notes.
So true . . . etiquette can wrap your brain in a bow sometimes. nice post. We’ve blown the thank you note time window a few times eek!
Now you made me feel like an idiot for not writing thank you notes. Thanks! LOL!!! I know it’s simple… I’m just terrible at making the time to do them. It’s a HORRID excuse. But this year I swore I would do it… so I bess get to work. Thanks for the inspiration. I need to teach my kids to be more polite than me!
I can tell we came from the same family!!! Like you, I’ve been writing Thank you notes since we learned how to write. Now that I have a child of my own, and I’m a math teacher, I’m definitely gonna have to use this formula!!! I wonder if your formula will help my students remember the quadratic formula? Probably not.
We’re a thank you note people here, so I’m glad to see that you are one of Our Kind. It also results in my children getting WAY MORE PRESENTS, since people enjoy their polite little letters, a fact which should perhaps be mentioned to a few rude non-thanking children of my acquantaince.