unburdened
Posted By Sherry on April 7, 2006
I can write about it now that it’s safely in the bank. A couple of days ago Mauri and I met with someone who has owed us money for several years now. For a while he had made attempts to repay it but those faltered. So his answering-machine invitation to lunch intrigued us.
We shared pleasant conversation across the table. Finally, as we cracked open our fortune cookies, the story unfolded. It included an accident and an insurance payout and because of that he had an envelope full of cash in his inside pocket, which he then revealed. He was obviously enjoying himself, had probably already lived that moment in his mind’s eye as he anticipated the offer he was about to make.
Yes, we’d take a lesser amount to call the debt paid in full. Win/win! He handed the envelope to me across the table, and I felt like we were filming some kind of movie scene as I counted the cash while holding it out of sight under the table. Since it was cash, I counted it for his sake as well as ours. We signed the hand-written payout agreement, shook hands, and went our separate ways. I think I watched him float down the street, so happy was he to be unburdened by the “elephant” he’d been dragging around all these years. We walked a little lighter to our car because being owed money can also be a burden.
Leave a Reply