Ties

This weekend we went out and bought Randy a Christmas tie. I think it's the first one he's ever had. I'm not sure where a stake president wears a Christmas tie, but he didn't wear it to church today. Perhaps if we'd started a little earlier we could have found something a little more "stake presidentish" than penguins dancing with candy canes. Anyway, it made me think about the Christmas I was 19 years old -- one of the last I would spend at home with my parents. I had a part-time job wrapping Christmas gifts at Marsden's, the nicest men's store in town. I got so I could wrap a mean package. Jon Isom also worked at Marsden's. He was about four years older than I was and was a sales clerk. He was a really cool guy, and although I was going out with lots of other guys I did enjoy flirting with Jon. I'm sure he thought I was just a punk kid, the little sister of one of his cool friends, and he teased me pretty unmercifully. I had an idea. On Christmas Eve Day I went through my dad's ties and picked out a really old one that was about six inches wide. That was in the days of the really skinny ties that were only about an inch and a half wide. I put it in a nice tie box and did my super-duper wrap job on it, then delivered it to Jon at home. As soon as he came to the door and saw me there with a gift I could tell that he felt really awkward and embarrassed. He didn't have anything for me, and he stammered and stuttered about my gift not being quite ready yet and how he would have to get it over to me later, blah, blah, blah. Wish I could have been a fly on his wall when he opened it. "Hey, Jon, watch out for that "punk kid" in the gift-wrap department. She got you good, and she enjoyed every minute she spent watching you squirm."