the wedding gift
ray’s wedding had gone off without a hitch. everyone seemed to have had a good time. a few people had too good of a time; they went home with designated drivers. all evening, the gift table remained unguarded. who would steal anything, ray thought. he had never heard of such a thing happening at a wedding. but his best friend aaron said there was a first time for everything. he strolled out regularly from the inside festivities to check on the gift table, making sure no one suspicious was hanging around it.
ray and julia went on a 3-week honeymoon to italy right after the wedding. when they got back, they opened all the gifts and sent out thank you notes. but there was one problem. a married couple that used to be good friends had apparently given nothing. this surprised julia, because walt and mary said they were thrilled to be invited. and, they actually seemed to have had a great time at the wedding. frankly, ray didn’t even care if they hadn’t given a gift. he just needed to know whether to send a thank you note. ray called aaron. aaron said maybe walt had left an envelope on the gift table like aaron had. “yes, but we got your envelope with the cash inside,” ray said.
“maybe my envelope looked too thin, and some thief thought walt’s envelope looked nice and fat.”
aaron asked ray if he had looked everywhere for walt’s gift. had he called up the wedding site to see if anything had been left behind? ray said that he had looked everywhere and made a lot of calls that were fruitless.
ray didn’t know what to do. if he sent walt and mary a thank you note for a gift they hadn’t given, they would be insulted. if he didn’t send them a thank you note for a gift they had given, they would be insulted.
“what would you do?” ray asked. aaron said he would call walt up and tell him the problem.
“you can’t go wrong with simply being honest,” aaron said.
“oh, yes, you can,” ray countered. “sometimes it’s best to let sleeping dogs lie.” but he thought about it, and finally decided that honesty might be the best policy. he called walt and told him the problem. walt said that yes, he had given an envelope. in fact, the envelope contained $500 cash.
“$500?!” ray asked. “that’s a lot of cash, walt!” walt admitted that it was, but he had gotten a fat raise early that year and ray’s was the only wedding he’d been to in quite a while. ray thanked him very much, and apologized sincerely for someone stealing walt’s generous gift. walt told him that it was “only money.”
when ray told aaron about walt’s gift, aaron laughed. “the only thief at the wedding was walt! i quit playing cards with him last year because i caught him cheating. and it was only a $10 pot! i’m sure i told you about that.”
“yes, you did tell me,” ray said. but, of course, he had to send walt a thank you note anyway.
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