A tenant hosted a big open house event in his office for the holiday.  He invited many prominent people from the community and sponsored a children’s charity as part of the event.  I stopped by and was pleased to see that things were going really well.   There were a lot of happy people and the tenant gave a speech and announced a large donation that he was going to give the charity.  I found the tenant in the crowd and complimented him on the turn out.

Tenant:  Thank you, but of course I’m known for these sorts of events.  I expect nothing but the best and everyone knows that.  It has to be first class for me all the way or I won’t do it at all.

Me:  It’s all very impressive, the food and the decorations are really….um….hey, those huge snowflake shaped wreaths look a lot like the ones we just installed in the building lobby.  Where in the world did you find those?  We rented ours  custom-made from a professional holiday decorating company and they spent hours suspending them from the lobby ceiling on little clear wires.  We have a big promotional photo shoot scheduled for this weekend so we wanted everything to be just perfect.  Those big glitter covered wicker reindeer look just like…just like the ones that are wired onto the our big decorated tree in the lobby too.  Um..tenant?   Are those my reindeer?  Are those my snowflakes?  Oh my god…are the poinsettias all around the place taken from the lobby too?  Oh my god, oh my god, did you cut down and steal all of the lobby decorations and bring them in here for your party?  Did you do that?  This whole place is decorated with stolen decorations!

Tenant:  Calm down!  I just borrowed everything for a little while.  It’s not stealing if I give it back.

He did give it back.  He gave it back and paid the decoration company overtime charges to reinstall everything in time for the photo shoot and reimbursed them for all of the damaged items.

Later he complained that because he had to pay for all of that he wasn’t able to write the big check to the charity that he so proudly announced at the party.  Somehow he figured that  was all my fault.  He was first class all the way.

I’m a little embarrassed to recall how hysterically squealy I got at the party.  I’m pretty sure my voice was getting close to the point where only dogs could hear it.  But in my hysterical defense I had spent months coordinating everything and several long days getting it all installed.  Seeing it all torn apart and stuck all over this classy guy’s office made me lose my mind for a little bit.  Just a little.