Dear Peanut:
Thank you for saying no to everything today. Really. It made me feel I’ve earned my $0.00 salary. And what a joy it is to feel one is worth about as much effort as shaking your head side to side. Constantly.

And thank you for that very creative and intriguing tantrum about not washing your hands before we eat. It gave me the unheard of opportunity to pluck my eyebrows, standing there waiting for you to come to your senses. It had been too long. What a gift your lack of reason has been today. Thanks ever so much.

Dear DPW,
Thank you so much for tearing up the streets to repair something under the ground. Your skill is surpassed only by the gratitude society has for your public works results. On both sides of the street. During working hours. I really appreciate you saving City money by not doing the work, say, after hours. Or much more slowly by, say, working on the east-bound side THEN the west-bound THEN the north-bound. Thank you for doing them all together so that every car inches forward exactly ten feet per green light during lunch hour. And thank you, too, for not working at all on the south-bound side, since I don’t drive that way and would not have gotten to listen to an unending lecture from the backseat on what kind of trucks do and why I’m wrong to call a front loader a front loader when it’s clearly, from the special vantage point of a car seat, “maybe” a snow plow. In August. In California. It sure is good to have possibilities!

Dear Neighbors,
Thank you for the glorious aromas of your wondrous breakfast offerings. I wasn’t having a colorful enough walk before your omelets and pancakes and pork products produced a sparkling technicolor yawn from somewhere, it seemed, deep in my knees. What a new world you’ve opened my eyes (and pyloric valve) to by sharing your various intensely scented meals to my day. Thanks, especially for the Denver omelet, neighbor five blocks away. I hope it didn’t repeat on you like it did for me the whole rest of the way home.

Dear Children Visiting the Elementary School,
Oh, isn’t wonderful that school is out and you can use the local school’s playground whenever you wish? So much fun! Especially that delightful game you have of chasing each other and screaming “HELP!” at the top of your young and particularly shrill voices. Delightful. It’s quite special for you to engage in your spirited play so close to my highly empathic son, because he spend the whole day asking me why you were scared and why someone needed help but the fire fighters weren’t coming. It’s a wonderful teachable moment about shrill, screaming little children who should, maybe, be freaking parented on a semi-regular basis, and I do so appreciate that gift.

Dear People in My Way,
Oh, your presence is a special addition to my life. Thank you for being in my way, no matter where I go. You make me appreciate the vast quantities of patience I naturally possess, and help me create wonderful linguistic moments in the car where I explain to a three year old why shouting “Can’t you people all just go home?!” is really rhetorical, not a genuine request that the entire city go home. Though that would be lovely. You deserve it. Go home to your families. Enjoy some time off the streets, out of the stores, away from the parking spaces, and out of my life. Consider this chance to get the hell out of my way a special gift from me to you.