Father of the Bride by Edward Streeter

days. By occasionally visiting the spare room for a private refresher course he was in control of the situation up to the thirty-sixth present. Then, while he was at the office one day, Mrs. Banks borrowed three more card tables and shifted everything around.
    After that he struggled for a short while, then gave up. He never forgot the first thirty-five presents, however. Occasionally he tried to establish himself by picking up some object from this restricted group and remarking, “This bowl from the Appleblossoms is a nice thing.” No one paid any attention to him, but it made him feel that he still had a stake in the situation.
    At first he had taken special pleasure in the drinking merchandise. This department led off with a dozen old-fashioned glasses. Then came ditto highball glasses. A cocktail shaker from Steuben, he was chagrined to note, was better than anything of the sort he had ever owned or probably ever would. A gleaming copper bar-table with red leather side rails filled him with envy.
    Time passed and in its course Kay accumulated three dozen old-fashioned glasses, two dozen glass muddlers, four dozen highball glasses, three large cocktail shakers, two martini stirrers, two bride and groom midget cocktail sets, two whiskey decanters, five silver bottle openers, a half acre of wineglasses, a portable bar and sundry jiggers and corkscrews. The place began to look like a setup for The Lost Weekend. Mr. Banks’ connoisseur’s enthusiasm was displaced by misgivings.
    He was no teetotaler. On the other hand he now began to wonder whether he possibly had not overdone things a bit and conveyed to the world the impression that he was rearing a brood of alcoholics.

The place began to look like a setup for The Lost Weekend.

•  •  •
    Given enough ointment there is always a fly. Given enough presents there is always One-of-Them. They are as inevitable as death. The only thing that is unpredictable is the direction from which they come. Kay’s arrived one Saturday in a large wooden box, buried deep in Its nest of excelsior as if trying to hide Its shame.
    It was a china lad in a china pink coat and a china maid in a Harlem pink skirt, crossing a china bridge which did not bridge anything, on Harlem blue china feet. As It rose from Its hiding place the family looked at It in stunned silence as the crew of a South Seas whaler might have watched a sea serpent emerge from the waters beside the ship. They knew, without the necessity of words, that this was IT.
    Mr. Banks was the first to recover himself. “Who?” he demanded through clenched teeth. They pawed through the excelsior and fished out a card. “With love and affection from Aunt Marne.”
    A composite sound came from the Banks family. It was the cumulative cry of man’s frustration through the ages. It might have been made by a Neanderthal father who, returning to his cave, finds a saber-toothed tiger licking his whiskers at the entrance.
    Aunt Marne, of all people! The one member of the family who had been counted on to come across handsomely—preferably with a substantial check! She was rich, she was unmarried and she spent a week with the Bankses each fall. When Mr. Banks thought of all the evenings he had spent listening to Aunt Marne’s non-stop chatter he was sorry he had not given way to his instincts while the opportunity was at hand and regardless of the consequences.
    This was the Great Betrayal. From now on the name of Aunt Marne would be coupled with those of Judas Iscariot, Brutus, Benedict Arnold and Tojo.
    “What are we going to do with it?” wailed Kay.
    “Do you want me to tell you?” asked Mr. Banks.
    Mrs. Banks examined it at arm’s length. “I suppose we’ll have to put it with the other presents. She’s apt to come popping in any time.”
    “Perhaps we could change it”—hopefully.
    “I’ve been looking. It doesn’t say where it came from.”
    “It would be a pity to drop it,” said Mr. Banks.
    They put It on