(If you haven’t seen the picture.)

Maybe we have a few things in common. We were both driving back to the office at the end of the day (me to drop off the cases I had picked up, you to do more paperwork). Both five years at our jobs. Both without prior accidents. But I’m actually in marketing, not delivery, and if it wasn’t for the fact that our so many of our drivers had called in sick, I wouldn’t have been on the road at this particular time on this particular day.

It was actually a few factors that led to my driving into the dirt shoulder, and eventually, settling in a ditch facing the wrong way in the grassy median. You drove from the onramp directly into the passing lane — where I was — without checking your blind spot. Or signaling. I didn’t realize you were coming into my lane and about to hit me until it was too late. I didn’t have time to brake, so I had to drive half onto the shoulder. As I steered back onto the cement road, it caused a difference in traction between my left and right tires. It made me veer left, and I tried to correct it by steering right. Then the same thing happened in the opposite direction.

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Often, when someone thanks me, I find myself saying “Don’t mention it” or “No need to thank me”. Yet when someone doesn’t thank me for a favour, I feel like I’m being taken advantage of.

It’s a funny thing that I feel like a thank-you is unnecessary only after someone has said it. Maybe it’s because as long as the person appreciates the favour, that’s all that matters.

It’s similar to the way Pat once offered to let me stay with him and Jen if I ever find myself without a job and a house. I’d probably never take him up on the offer because I never want to be a burden anyone. At the same time, he knows this and doesn’t expect me to take him up on it, but he offered anyway because he knows I wouldn’t take it for granted, and would still be happy to take me in if the situation warranted it.

Perhaps such acts become more of an acknowledgment than a practical gesture. As long as I know that someone is appreciative and recognizes a favour, that’s all that matters. But really, isn’t that what a thank you is — an acknowledgment through thanks? At the same time, without a thank you, how would we know that someone is appreciative?

It’s like the act itself is simultaneously necessary and unnecessary.