Thank you SO much.

It’s 2011 holiday season at GAP. I’m working the women’s sales floor and things are just peachy. There’s about 300 go backs, clothes are flying everywhere & I’m coked out from the night before, unbothered, and scrolling for my next hookup on Grindr.

A white woman, probably mid 30’s drops about 50 items to try on in front of me. She spits, “Can I try these!?”… I look up from my phone.

“I don’t know, can you?!”

I wish I had said that, but instead I greet her with a smile on my face, and politely said “Follow me”. I drop my phone alongside my potential 6’4 hung visitor from Denmark and I guide her into the fitting room plopping her shit in there.

I go back to my station, set up a time for Mr. Denmark, pick up a stack of shirts and a stack of hangers and start preparing them for go backs. As I hang like a tornado of a sales person I get down to the final shirt. 1 shirt, 1 hanger left. I pause. “I JUST GRABBED THE PERFECT AMOUNT OF SHIRTS, FOR THE PERFECT AMOUNT OF HANGERS.” This was a retail miracle. This is a moment I discovered as a wrinkle in time. Everything stops, all the noise clears, everything seems crystal clear. You are happy because you do not wait anxiously for the future nor the past. You’re utterly in the present moment and it’s the best feeling in the Universe.

“EXCUSE ME, CAN I GET A ROOM” the next guest yells at me. I hear the fitting room door open. “Thank you SO much” says the white woman. “Thank you SO much” I think to myself, who says that? And why the emphasis on the “So”!? She leaves every single shirt/pant/maxi dress off the hanger inside out and in a massive pile. I pick up the pile, throw it into the dressing room next to my station where the pile of go backs is about as tall as me now. I let the next woman into a dressing room and my life continued.

Fast Forward. 2014. I’m now living in LA, I’m sober, freshly single and working at a hotel in Downtown Los Angeles, a job I never thought I would do. That is, work at a hotel, Let alone be a bellman! I’m wrapping up a guest interaction.

“Thank you SO much”. she says. I’ve heard this before, and said just like this! The guest grabs her keys from the valet attendant leaving us both without a tip, but to our luck with an emphasis on the “So”.

I think to myself… That “So”, in her mind will most likely carry me through the rest of this day. Later on, since it’s the first of the month I’ll just tell my landlord that I’ll have half my rent money in dollars and the other half in overly exaggerated Thank You’s for my hard work. (Like loading up her car of 4 oversized suitcases, a hat box, dog crate, and very large paper shopping bags with the nice silky handles)

After the tipless interaction I go inside to buy my valet guy a cold coffee since assisted me. Again I hear it. “Thank you SO much” another person has just said to our barista. I’m fucking baffled, I walk up to the barista. “Did they tip you?” I say. “No, Why?” they reply.

In my life I’ve heard this phrase in places where I'm usually performing a service to someone. In return they take full advantage of said service to the point I feel like I should be filing a W-2. After they have exhausted every element of my being. They don’t choose to thank me with generosity of a tip or a classic “Thank You” instead they say “Thank Yewww Sooooo Muuuch” Aka...

“OMG so like I know we live in a tip culture society and everyone deserves more money.. but like do you? Like how much did you help me just then? Like I know I asked for your service but like I also could of done it myself, Like I’m a super able bodied human, I swear, So…

“Thank you SOOO much”

The French have a form of this phrase. “Merci Beaucoup”. Simple, cute and effective. And as a sign of great appreciation, usually little children say it, Because it’s really cute. Adults just go with the classic “Merci” The French phrase of gratitude has been around way longer then the American version. So why at some point in time, did a somebody add a “So Much”. I don’t want to blame privileged rich people who had a silver spoon glued to their tongue and never needed to express gratitude because everything was thrown to them. But. I do. Because it’s exactly where it originated. Or at least I like to believe so.

People in general need to become better at expressing gratitude for people’s work or kindness. Or when people give compliments to each other. Greet it with an egoless “Thank You” and you seem calm and collected, almost superior. Greet it with a “T.Y.S.M.” and you’re extra AF. It is not our “Merci Beaucoup”. It is weirdly passive, overly egoic, and also quite cringe worthy to receive.

Gratitude is power. Don’t take advantage of it, and like RuPaul says, “Don’t Fuck It Up”.