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As I was driving home from lunch today (yes, I went to the hit-and-run Taco Bell again), I encountered a road block where Market Street turns into Saratoga Avenue. Traffic heading toward the unexpectedly closed stretch of Saratoga Avenue upon which I currently reside was being diverted to a side street. Due to the particular position of the road block, I could not see whether Saratoga was closed in both directions or only in the direction I was heading—Saratoga Avenue is a two-way street, but Market Street is a one-way street that turns into just one direction of Saratoga—so I stopped to ask a road worker and a police officer about reaching my apartment, which is directly opposite the section that was closed. The officer said I could access that side of the street from Scott Boulevard, which I could reach via the network of side streets through which I was being detoured. I said "Thanks a lot" and went about my way.
Now, I tend to be uncommonly courteous, but I got to thinking about what I said and I have to wonder if I overdid it on the quantity of thanks. Sure, I was thanking the officer for the information, so any inconvenience due to being detoured really shouldn't factor in to any thankfulness calculations, but nonetheless, a regular amount of thanks would likely have been sufficient. To be safe, "Thanks an unspecified yet appropriate amount" might have been the best thing to say, but it just doesn't roll off the tongue very well, does it? And while "Thanks a little" might have been understandable due to potential annoyance at the inconvenience of being detoured, the man had a gun and he looked rather bored just standing around in the middle of the street, so I wasn't going to say that.
