Thank you3

This morning I had to telephone someone. I could not dial directly from here, so I had to take help from the telephone operator. She was an elderly lady who was very, very kind to me. When I gave her the number, she said to me, “Thank you.”

So I said to her, “Thank you.”

Then she said to me very affectionately, in a motherly way, “When someone says ‘Thank you’, you are not supposed to say ‘Thank you’! You are supposed to say, ‘You are welcome’!”

I thanked her for telling me that, and then she started laughing and laughing.


WE 3. 17 September 1981