A PYMNTS Thank-You Letter

As the nation preps their turkey basters and works up the courage to argue that their casserole recipe is actually the best in the family (sorry, Aunt Ruth), we here at PYMNTS would like to take a bit of time to reflect on and give thanks to all the topics, trends and breaking news stories we cover — we couldn’t do this without you.

Thank you, startup companies, for identifying and solving problems we didn’t even know we had.

Thank you, AI personal assistants, for working, like, 30 percent of the time. It’s the thought that counts.

Thank you, bitcoin, for enabling us to buy coffee in Russia. We’re sorry that so many people find you confusing. It’s not your fault you’re misunderstood.

And speaking of cryptocurrency, thank you, Swiss Federal Railway, for allowing us to buy bitcoins on the go from your railway ticket machines.

Thanks to you, Burberry chatbots, for helping us pick out that new oversized tartan scarf to make Susan from HR jealous without having to leave the office.

Thank you, robots, for slowly infiltrating every corner of our world, homes, retail, customer service, factory work … You’re all beautiful. Please don’t rise up against us.

Thank you, holiday pop-ups, for selling us things we didn’t know we needed. (I mean, of course, we’ll buy them …)

Thank you, Apple, for thoughtfully storing all of our call, message and FaceTime data for months and months … just in case. You never know when it might come in handy.

Thank you, McDonald’s, for getting with the times and working on your ordering app. The one complaint we have about fast food is that it just isn’t fast enough. Immediate chicken nuggets are a must.

Thank you, mobile payments, for one day … maybe … making it easier for us to buy just about everything.

Thank you, wearable fitness tech, for telling us just how few steps we’ve taken each day.

Thank you, Internet of Things, for the wealth of convenience (and making it feel like the future is already here). Don’t worry about all the hacker stuff — we’ll figure something out.

Thank you, Snapchat Snapbots, for the killer shades. What we need as a nation are more cameras.

Thank you, PetSmart — and, truly, all retailers competing amongst each other — for the on-demand services you offer to make sure that we never have to drive (ugh), get out of our car, lock the car by remote, walk the 20 feet to the store, struggle to find the sensor for the the automatic doors, give up and use the manual door like it’s the freakin’ caveman days or something and have to walk all the way to the counter to deal with a human just to buy our cat her favorite tasty treats.

Thank you, Singles’ Day, for making Black Friday madness look a bit less mad by comparison.

Thank you, drones, for delivering our burritos, pizzas and impulsive Amazon purchases.

Thank you, Jellyfish Art, for … well, the jellyfish art. We’ve always dreamed of having our living room look like a Bond villain’s lair.

Thank you, Barnes & Noble, for always finding new ways to not go out of business. Drink up!

Finally, thank you, Lucky Break Wishbones, for the synthetic wishbones. This is truly the best thing to happen to Thanksgiving since people started deep frying turkeys.