Even these stunted holidays are filled with extra chores, last-minute wrappings-up and extra correspondence, each unit of which must be festooned with wishes for a happy holiday season and this year customized with “safe.”
Of all times to be a corrosive correspondent, this isn’t it.
You know the type. You send ’em a short email and you get a long one back. You reply with a long one and you get a short one back—asking a bunch of niggling questions. You answer the questions, and more questions come.
This isn’t just an email phenomenon.
I remember a correspondent of my dad’s.
Dad would write him a letter, and put it in the mail and get another letter four days later.

After a few rounds of this, my dad thundered from his office,
“Why, that son of a bitch won’t stay answered!“
chicken, de minimis, footling, inconsequential, inconsiderable, insignificant, measly, Mickey Mouse, minute, negligible, no-account, nominal, paltry, peanut, petty, picayune, piddling, piddly, piffling, pimping, slight, trifling, trivial
never heard niggling. Thank you for the education.
Leann Bosch Plumondon, just one of them LOL