Fresh from the friendly confines of the Ahwatukee Foothills News comes the latest Mom, Interrupted.

As I suspected, this has been a hot one. The paper had only been out a couple of hours and I got two emails already. I’m a bit surprised that the authors sent electronic dismissals; one would have thought they would have sent tasteful, handwritten notes instead…

Oh, and as I frequently do, I thanked one gentleman for sending his comments. He thanked me for thanking me, which is an excellent example of an infinite recursive gratitude loop.

Click here for linkage, no matter how ephemeral. Click ‘Read More’ to, well, you know.

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Before I ever submitted a word to my first editor at the Ahwatukee Foothills News, he gave me a friendly caution about avoiding controversy. I’ve taken that instruction seriously, but today I have to break my silence and speak from the heart.

Please sit down, because today I’m going to slip the surly bonds of decorum and suggest that we euthanize the obligatory handwritten thank you note. Before you get your monogrammed stationery in a twist, hear me out.

The handwritten thank you note has served a useful purpose. Back in the day it was the only way a gift giver could know that the gift had been received and that the recipient was making at least a token show of pleasure in return. Fast forward to when a long distance phone call was an extravagant indulgence, and thank you notes were still the most efficient, inexpensive way to deliver gratitude and appreciation.

But in a world where you can live stream my delight; where you can hear me squee in real time on a cell phone; where I can stand in your living room and cry with joy at your generosity; why in this world am I still being dinged for not finding a note card and a stamp (at the same time!) and sending two sentences that sound like I cribbed them from a website with sample thank you note verbiage?

With the current cost of stamps and postal inefficiencies, the thank you note is now the least effective, most expensive way to send you my gratitude and as such is antithetical to the spirit of the custom.

“But we’ve always sent thank you notes!” you’ll cry. Yeah, and we used to perform surgery without washing our hands first. It’s as archaic as the man juggling an armful of packages, racing to open a door for a woman who is only holding a purse.

This appeal doesn’t stem from rudeness or laziness. This is a plea that we abandon the robotic “Thank you for the new toaster. I’ll think of you every time I eat a Pop-Tart,” that was clearly scrawled under duress as our mothers loomed threateningly over our shoulders.

And when that dutiful card is delivered? The recipient, feeling vaguely guilty for the unwritten notes in their own delinquent past, wonders how long he must retain the card even while keeping a mental tally of who hasn’t sent one and resolving not to ever send those ingrates anything again. This is only exacerbated by the nagging suspicion that he should send a thank you note for the thank you note, which is an entirely new level of crazy.

This is Weaponized Etiquette folks, and it’s getting perverted into score-keeping and one-upsmanship and infinite recursive gratitude loops, and that is not cool.

Since contacting you in person would be more than a little stalkerish and certainly frowned upon, I’m sending out my universal thanks to everyone who wrote to me this year, even if only to send um, constructive criticism. Every time you criticize a writer she gets another column idea, and ideas are what columnists ask for when they wish on a star.

It’s just what I always wanted! I’ll think of you every time I write about a Pop-Tart!

• Ahwatukee Foothills resident Elizabeth Evans can be reached at elizabethann40@hotmail.com.

© E. Stocking Evans 2016