My post thanking first responders for fighting the giant fire that is currently five miles from my house inspired e-mailer Clyde to add his two cents:

“Thanks to first responders is usually appropriate. But exactly what do you think we pay them to do if not the tasks you described? Moreover we provide 90% salary for lifetime pensions, extensive survivor benefits and a wide variety of other remunerative benefits making them among the highest paid public servants in the state. The gushing about working through the night doing their jobs seems to be absurd.”

That’s a good point, Clyde. And I’ll never ever thank a doctor for saving my life, or a soldier for protecting my country, or anyone for doing anything that could be described as “his job”, for I certainly wouldn’t want to gush absurdly.