Just a little note that I sent to my friendly banker several years ago.

Dear Mr. XXXXX

This is the forth anniversary of my association with you, and I would like to take this opportunity to thank you personally for your unflagging generosity. It started, I suppose, with my Master Card application which was promptly denied for reasons I've long since forgotten. Then, strangely enough, a charge card from your bank bearing my name followed shortly thereafter. I began to use my Master Card routinely, assuming the billing department had simply made an error in sending me the card denial, I might add I used the card exclusively as I had no other charge card. Two, three, four months passed; then one day it occurred to me that I would not be receiving a bill. Not one. Though I kept few receipts I calculated my charges to be well over a ten thousand dollars at the time. As the months rolled by I was certain the computer accounting error would be revealed, a mammoth bill would be sent, and that I would be held accountable for my actions.      

The years have clipped by now, as I've said, four in all, and as regular as the seasons I've continued to use your colorful card, but never an invoice. As the prices have risen so drastically in the last couple of years I have been forced to spread your generosity by sharing my credit privileges with my many relatives who have found their budgets shorted by ever rising etertainment costs.                                                     

This morning I had a new waterbed delivered to my home. This afternoon my ex-wife is getting a tune-up and a brake job at one of the many auto repair shops in this area. She, too, sends best wishes for your continued success. After all these years I have grown confident that my name and number are locked, eternally silent, in a minuscule electrical impulse somewhere in the computer's faulty chip, or senile memory bank. Or, it may simply be that someone you know is helping me, unbeknownst to you or your generous bank. I wonder how many other folks are being "helped" this way and have chosen not to write you? Unable to repay you now even if I were billed, I can only send you this note of teeming thanks.

 
       Sincerely, 

 
       A Fan With Many New Toys