I'd Like to Thank...

Thank you Ipod and your cleverly linked music purchasing venue Itunes for allowing me to experience immediate gratification and a slice of financial ambivalence at the same time. You deserve an award for all the money you've made me spend on the sole betterment of me.

Additionally, thank you Mr. Wagner (pronounced Vog-ner) for composing the Ride of the Valkyries. With your music and the Ipod & Itunes combination I mentioned above, I have been able to pedal my Wal-Mart bicycle even faster than was previously understood as dangerous. And thank you, Wal-Mart, for manufacturing a bicycle that changes gears when the wheel is turned and has, from what I can tell, no stopping capabilities.

Thank you driver of the red mini-van for not hitting me on my way to the dry cleaners today. I appreciate your reflexes and kind words and gestures as I sped past you and into oncoming traffic. Your soul, I'm certain, will be your guide.

Thank you dry cleaners for shrinking and fading another one of my workshirts. Your dedication to inefficience is something to be admired and recognized. It is because of you that my now-gray button down work shirt comes untucked and showcases my underwear every time I reach above my head at work. While I showcase my winning smile to the restaurant guests, allowing them to view my cotton briefs is above and beyond hospitable service.

Thank you H&R Block. You know what you did.

Thank you water delivery people for supplying me with yet another calculated delivery of nothing. It is your complete misunderstanding of customer service that warrants you my thanks and my continued business as tap water illicits mild dysentery and somehow the small-town monopoly of water delivery has fallen into your incapable, but very strong, hands.

Thank you McDonald's for featuring Spam as a meal deal menu item. It is your honesty that will warrant you entrance to the gates of heaven.

Thank you gracious and ever-understanding landlords for changing the locks on the gates once again. Your dedication to privacy and security are unmatched. To think that your hopes for a safe environment include locking your tenants out of their house - that is looking out. We can be destructive to our ownselves, it is true, and knowing that you're there waiting for us, gate locked, keys changed, is enough to warm the coldest of hearts.

And finally, thank you air conditioning unit. Thank you for smelling like dead cats and mildew, for humming incessantly through even the warmest of nights. It is the smell of comfort that clings to the clothes in our closet, the smell of stagnant metallic water you deliver to the curtains hanging over our windows - it is that perfume that will remind me of you later in life when I've been fallen face down in a murky lake somewhere near a local bear's lavatory.