Thank You Notes are Almost Extinct & It's a Tragedy

Thank you notes, as far as I'm concerned, can be a text, an email, a phone call, a social media post.  I'm not so old fashioned that it MUST be a handwritten card dropped in the mailbox.  Although, I don't care what technology has to offer, I'm always gonna love my paper!  My card stock!  My binders!  My good ole flip the page with my hands, feel the paper between my fingers style note book!  My bookmarks and books.  LOVE it.  Oddly enough, I can't stand the way newspaper feels, so I prefer to get my news from the (reputable) internet.  And that ink....ugh!  It gets everywhere.  We have white cabinets and I can always tell where my husband has been.  Just follow he newspaper ink smudges all over the kitchen and out the door to the gym.  Whoa.  Where'd I go?  Lemme get back to my thoughts related to the post title!  

I'm not sure at what point it actually happened, but thank you notes are going extinct.  It's like a whole new world of "I'm not thanking you for taking the time out to think of me, because that's what you SHOULD do...think of me, spend your time on me and your hard earned cash on me, DUH".  And you can't blame the millennial generations.  Some of you Gen Y, Gen X & even Baby Boomers dropped the ball!    

Let's get one thing straight.  No one owes you anything.  Any time you are given a gift, it's because someone thought enough of you, wanted to celebrate you, made special accommodations to budget the money, then shopped with YOU in mind.  There's an entire process that goes into it.  In some cases, they went through the trauma of heading to the post office to ship a box, or paid extra to have a gift shipped.   Maybe they picked out the perfect gift bag/box and can't wait to present you with it and see your facial expression when you realize that brightly packaged gift is for YOU.  If they are like me, they take great care in finding the right ones, and they can not wait for you to have it.  I get giddy when I know I've found a fantastic gift for someone.  I don't expect a thank you acknowledgement for every kind gesture or gift, but certainly when you go above and beyond or you ship me a gift, I will take a moment to express appreciation and sincere gratitude.  

Look, I'm open minded to advancements.  This world has gotten away from mailing letters and such.  I get that.  I can evolve.  I love my tech gadgets, social media, texting, too.  But what I don't understand is when I ship a gift and there's no acknowledgement, whatsoever.  Then, I gotta be the jerk tracking down the package and making sure it wasn't lost in the mail.  The money I work hard for and the gift I chose for you could be lost in a postal sea, so now it's up to me to see if it arrived.  In this case, a thank you acknowledgement also serves as a confirmation of delivery!  I find it incredibly rude when I learn oh no, they got that package two weeks ago.  Whatevs.  Rudy McRuderton, could you be any more rude?!  So here I am INVESTING MORE TIME and effort into making you feel special only to learn you were dismissive about receiving my gift.  Even if you hate the gift, it's not the point.  It's everything that goes into and behind it.  You thank the giver for taking time out of their life to appreciate you.  If you can manage the effort to send a shower invite or wedding invite, you can muster the energy to shoot a quick acknowledgement of a gift.  You don't have to love the gift, but you damn sure need to acknowledge it like you got some proper home training along the way somewhere in your life.  

You don't have to sit down and write a freakin poem on expensive birch paper, buy a stamp and drop it in the mail, either.  All you gotta do is text, email, SnapChat it, FB it, something.  "Hey, you.  Got your package.  Thank you."  It's that easy, folks!  Literally takes all of 5 seconds.