Sometimes I think I'm the world's last polite person. I get this impression because of the expression of total shock that flickers over people's faces when I thank them. I can't help it. I thank people.

I think it's because as a child I was tormented by the hellish antics of anthropomorphic animals contained in the dread tome "Richard Scarry's Please And Thank You Book". Within the pages of this book, polite hippopotamuses have their chairs pulled out by helpful worms and courteous kittens in khaki shorts thank pigs in lederhosen for handing them cups of tea. It's a bizarre and terrifying journey into the animal psyche, which is full of savagery, nature red in tooth and claw, and the proper etiquette for a child's birthday party.

Anyway, it stuck with me.

I thank waiters for bringing menus, and filling glasses, and bringing food, and taking orders, and bringing the check. They can't do a thing to my table or the airspace above it without being thanked. This seems to alarm them sometimes, as if I'm being extra polite to justify leaving a tiny tip, or that I'm being loftily sarcastic in some fashion. I really don't. I'm grateful they're bringing me things, and also grateful that I'm not a waiter. I couldn't do that job for a million dollars, because people are so rude and bark orders and complain about the service. Perhaps I thank the waiters so much as an attempt to compensate for the ruder customers, or to convince them that life is worth living and nobody needs to slip poison into water pitcher.

I thank the checker at the supermarket, and I thank the bagboy, too. They invariably award me with suspicious stares. Bagboys are a bitter lot, unused to being addressed by the mighty, i.e. customers buying groceries.

"This guy is buying actual Greek olives...and he's thanking me? What's his game?" the bagboys think. They suspect me of dreadful intentions, which of course I don't harbor. Unless the bagboy is really cute, in which case I usually feel guilty because, let's face it, just because they're legal age doesn't mean it wouldn't be creepy. I felt weird dating a 23 year old when I was 26.

I write long, boring, informative letters to my grandparents to thank them when they send me money for Christmas or my birthday. I could just write a short thank-you note, but I feel guilty that I have so little contact with the old people. So I write them at least three pages of the kind of informative "your grandchild is a normal, healthy adult and not a freak at all" sort of narrative, avoiding anything I think is remotely humorous because my grandparents just don't get it. I'm the only grandchild, on either side, who writes them, which makes me feel even more guilty because I only do it when they send me money. They're paying me to write them, really. Which is sad, and makes those horrible blood money letters take four hours to write. They like to hear about how much sensible insurance coverage I have, and the civic amenities near my apartment.

So much is the thanking courtesy ingrained that I cause quite a stir sometimes. I thank people for having me to their parties when I go, and I usually email them again the next day to tell them how good a time I had, whether I did or not.

I thank the hosts when I attend an orgy, and tell them I had a lovely time. This seems to amuse, although not nearly as much as when I thank somebody at a sadomasochist event for doing dreadful things to me. I think it's because I fall into the "Richard Scarry's Please And Thank You Book" style of expressing gratitude, and use the same tone and words to thank someone for an elegant Thanksgiving dinner as I do to thank a perverted gentleman for pouring hot wax on my nethers in a room with more leather and chains than a Hell's Angels tour of a medieval dungeon.

"Thank you so much, I had a very good time. Thanks for inviting me." The sentiment, though earnest and perfectly proper, just seems odd when accompanied by the sound of padlocks being removed.

I guess early training really does stick with you. Undoubtedly I shall go on startling people by thanking them, for pulling me over to give me tickets, for coming to check my water meter, for filling my teeth, for cutting my hair, and quite likely one day I shall sit up in my coffin to express my gratitude to the mortician, and could he convey my regards to the coffin manufacturer?

It's a curse, sometimes, this cartoon-animal-based etiquette. It makes me sound like a mental patient, or a time traveler who is hopelessly lost in the modern world where people are expected to do their jobs without comment. Sigh. Oh well. Consider me a martyr to childhood brainwashing.

And thank you so much for reading this.