Thank You’s

Late this afternoon I looked out my front door and there were two packages on my front porch. One a big giant box and the other a big bag. I looked down into the open topped bag and saw a beautiful Japanese knife with a note tied around it. Beneath was my cake plate I had brought to my friend’s house. I picked up the knife and read the note of thanks.

The box was also a thank you. Inside were four giant ribeye pork chops, each individually wrapped as if they were gold themselves. I had never seen a chop so big, let alone four. They were from our friends who came to visit two weeks ago.

Such extravagant thank you’s. One for a cake, the other for a night’s visit. I texted my friend who returned the cake plate and said that the knife was an over the top thank you for a cake. She texted back, “Isn’t that your knife? I thought you brought it with the cake.”

I had not brought this knife. When I went to cut the cake at her house my friends and I had a terrible time finding a knife in her kitchen. She doesn’t ever cook. The knife we found came from the skinniest drawer that held four or five very random knives.

“I haven’t been in the kitchen much in the last year.” The knife was not a gift to me. She came back and picked up her bag and knife.

I am now afraid to call my friends about these pork chops. These friends don’t live here and I don’t want to ship meat out of state. I am sure they really are a thank you gift, but after the knife…