How to write a Thank You letter

1. Sit back into your chair, pen and paper in hand, or substitute with a keyboard and screen.
2. Think about the world, and why you are grateful to it...
3. Disregard step two, because you've probably found more reasons to rue the world then by grateful.
4. Drink some tea, good tea. Good thing you like tea, skip to step seven. If not, go to step five.
5. What was that? You don't like tea? Skip ahead to step eleven.
6. Go back to step four. Repeat until you learn to like tea.
7. Extend your arm above you head, and stare at it long and hard.
8. Do so until all the feelings of dislike and malice and bad things in the world slip away.
9. Once that's all out of your system, close your eyes and think about the person your letter is to.
10. Skip to step twelve
11. Go back to step six.
12. Always remember a thank you should be subtle, and come from the heart.
13. Precede to write the letter.
14. After writing the letter, stare at it intently
15. Rip up the letter and discard it in the trash. I said it was supposed to be a subtle letter, from the heart.
16. Contemplate the following: The possibility of your unfortunate death, the possibility of a stranger's unfortunate death, the possibility of said person's unfortunate death.
17. Which of the three makes you feel the most sorrow?
18. Take a few moments to shed a couple of tears. Can't cry? Start back at the beginning.
19. Once that is out of your system, now think about the stars, gaze at the stars. See how they sparkle?
20. Good. Now that all of those preliminaries are out of the way, we can get on to the actual steps.
21. First, go get something to eat. Can't write without eating now can you?
22. And something to drink.
23. And a blanket, grab one of those too.
24. Now go run for a few minutes.
25. Do some sit ups.
26. Finish your homework.
27. Once that is out of the way, precede to writing the letter.
28. Tear the letter up again. You weren't focused on the person.
29. Now I want you to imagine you and this person as if you were in a movie, with really soft, slow music playing in the background. And its in black and white, with a grainy, shaky film projector.
30. Imagine your childhood with this person, and then imagine your old age together.
31. Think about all the stupid things you've ever done in your life.
32. Go drink some more tea, even if you don't like it.
32. Go back to your writing place, stare at the ceiling long and hard.
33.. Think about all the steps you've done to write this person a thank you letter.
34. Put down your pencil and paper, turn off the computer.
36. Pick up the phone, or go find this person.
37. Tell them all the crazy things you did just to write them a thank you letter.
38. Tell them then you found out that it doesn't matter how meaningful the words sound on paper, that there is no better way of saying thank you then through the things you do, each and everyday.
39. Then you can both precede to laughing at the cheesy sounding speech you just gave.
40. Just remember, the message is there. Now go get a cup of tea.
41. Next time some one asks you how to write a letter, give them this list, so they can suffer through the 41 asinine steps just to find out what they already knew. And if they ask about the tea, tell them they've missed the metaphor, and to start back at step one again.