Elysha and I took the kids to Yankee Stadium this summer for their first major league baseball game.
It was an unforgettable night.
It got a little better a few weeks later when my friend, Tom, handed me a gift just before a round of golf. He told me it was a gift for the kids. “They’ll love it,” he assured me.
I was a little worried.
The last gift exchanged between Tom and me at this particular golf course was one of the best gifts I’ve ever received. On the morning of my day-long bachelor party, which began with a round of golf, my friend, Jeff, handed me a small, wrapped box.
“What’s this?” I asked.
“A gift for you,” he said. “But don’t open it. Give it to Tom.”
Five minutes later, standing near the starter’s shed amid our friends, I gave the box to Tom. He assumed that it was a gift from me for being one of my groomsmen. He thanked me. Unwrapped the box. Removed the lid.
An enormous, angry spider crawled out of the box onto Tom’s hand. The largest spider that wasn’t a tarantula I’d ever seen.
Tom is terrified of spiders. Deeply, profoundly frightened of them. He screamed, tossed the box into the air, and ran.
It was glorious.
Jeff’s gift to me was one of the best pranks I’ve ever perpetrated upon a person.
One of the best gifts I’ve ever been given.
So when Tom handed me a wrapped box at the exact location sixteen years later, I was worried. But it was for the kids, and Tom is a much better person than me. He would never seek revenge upon me via my children.
At least, I didn’t think so. Still, I was worried.
I arrived home after golf, handed the box to my kids, and invited them to open it. And I recorded the moment just in case something terrible emerged from the box.
No spider inside. Instead, two baseballs. Baseballs from the Yankees game we attended weeks before. Two baseballs that had been used in the game. Balls that had been pitched to major league batters and put aside after being hit or bounced in the dirt or caught to end an inning.
Certified, game played, major league baseballs from the game we had attended. A terrific gift, accompanied by a beautiful letter for my kids, which Clara read aloud as I recorded.
It was glorious.
Definitely not a spider.
Also, the second-best gift ever exchanged at Stankey Golf Course in New Britain, Connecticut.
The spider, of course, is still number one.
