Now that's a thank-you present

Back in the day, when I was in high school, I was pretty much what you'd expect: the smart, quasi-artsy, often mean kid with almost no friends. The cheerleaders were also what you'd expect: pretty, rich, and uniformly mean to most of us.

Except one, Lynn, who was from "our" part of town. Though she was as pretty and as intimidating as the rest of the cheerleaders, she always seemed nice, and I never saw her be mean to anyone. She had a big fan base among the non-popular kids (which is always just about everybody).

I mention Lynn because she dropped me an email a while back when she ran across my writing, and she then bought a book and sent it to me for a signature. Hers was the book that led to the humorous beach Post Office story.

Well, when she read that story and next sent me some books to sign, she not only enclosed return postage, she also sent under separate cover a thank-you gift: bacon, four pounds of Dakin Farm cob-smoked bacon.

Now, I'm not John Scalzi, and I sure don't have his blog's reader base, but I do love bacon. So, if any of you are seeking the perfect gift to thank a writer (or, at least, this writer) for something, you could do a lot worse than bacon.