Photographer: Unknown

When I was younger and in love, I gave him a little tiffany lamp that looked like his cat.

His cat had an odd shaped  frame, his tail was half the size it should have been   and his head  that was a little to big for his body- so to find anything that looked like his favorite and only pet that he had ever called his own was special.

He kept his cat lamp  in his office and one of his staffers admired it, She asked him if he could find out where I got it so that she could get one like it too. The thing was, the little lamps were hand crafted so none of them looked exactly the same, so she was not happy with her version and asked him to swap with her.

He told me about the trade and said he thought I would  understand. What did it matter,  it was just a lamp and she was such a hard worker, she was invaluable member of his team. It was a small favor, he said a half dozen times in a couple of different ways.

I told him I understood.

When I went to his offices from time to time I would see my gift to him sitting on her desk and she would look up at me and smile and say ‘hello ‘ with a big smile showing off all of her teeth.

I would stop at her desk, and say hello in return  and  then I asked her to arrange for someone to bring me a cup of tea  to his office. She would grimace and said she would be happy to take care of it herself.

He got upset when I did that, he said she wasn’t an errand girl and that I should respect her position in his office.

When she brought it in I would push it to him and watch him drink what I supposed was her spit filled tea.

 I hold the opinion that at anytime in this life anyone can take anything of yours and make it their own, They can sell it, wear it maybe even nail it to the wall .

Or they  set it on their desk and gloat over it every time they see or think of your face.

This little snapshot of three people and their gifts to each other  is a small  lesson and I hope entertaining lesson  about ‘ possessions’

Possessions can be replaced, So helping yourself to what belongs to somebody else may not be something that person who takes things that don’t belong to them loses much sleep over.

What a thief should be concerned with is what their victims chooses to fill the  empty space that they have created