My son Freddie Fondlegod was driving, my fair if talkative wife Thelma Louise Fondlegod rested on the front passenger seat and sprayed the enclosure full of general commentary. I , Fartch, in back ducking the mainstream, sorted through a sack of Lowe's tools and the hardware for doors, when in due course my talented fingers contracted nasty black grease. "Anybody have a tissue?" I spat rhetorically.

Thelma Louise chewed off a ragged "Sure, dear" and I had myself a tissue.

I coughed up "Thank you," and she choked out "Welcome." Freddie gargled, "Such grace among us!" I gagged and she dry-heaved a sigh.

I began to teach them. "You know," I propounded, "the thanks I just now delivered, as with all thanks, has to some unknown extent be conditional. If for example this tissue turns out to harbor a contact poison—whether by intent or incompetence—then I shall have issued thanks for being poisoned, a negative obviously outweighing the benefit! Our awareness is limited in all matters. Therefore we cannot possibly account for all ramifications to proceed from an apparent act of kindness.

"It's possible that had I been poisoned, that evil might itself have been eclipsed by a greater unanticipated good. For instance, the poisoning might have been just sufficient to eradicate an undocumented biological pathogen infesting my system and on the verge of taking me down. On the other hand, falling to the bug might prove to have been a preferable outcome, in light of some more abysmal destiny to claim me subsequently. The point is, we just don't know.

"Nor do we know whether a generous action, itself perhaps free of harm or hazard as far as that goes, might occur against a larger and darker backdrop of other actions or within a frame of experiences that on the whole ultimately bode dismay. If we knew, quite likely we would not feel disposed to be thanking someone for the small favor when all hell lay in the balance.

"Now what I'm proposing here is that we as a people ought to universally regard expressions of gratitude and the warm feelings thereby evoked as devalued by irresolvable conditionality, or subject to nonquantifiable markdown. In practical terms this means that we may preserve polite form for the general good while reserving our enthusiasm for puppies and fresh snow.

" . . .Which themselves can kill you."