What would you think you would have done if this had happened to you?

 Back in the 1970s (a LONG time ago!), Warren was working for a large tax preparation firm.  

 When we announced our engagement, his boss and boss's wife (who also worked for the firm sometimes) were quite excited for us.

 A few weeks after our wedding, they traveled to Florida.  They came back with a large load of lawn ornaments that they loved.  As a wedding gift, they drove to our house and dropped off (I was not there) our gift -- 

One huge bright red, bright orange, bright white swirly patterned outdoor fountain sculpture that stood about 4 foot tall.   It is hard to describe, but if you know what ribbon candy looks like, this looked like huge ribbon candies curving out all around, and tiered.  They placed it in our front yard where they thought it looked lovely.  

Sort of like this idea, but in BRIGHT erratic swirls of orange, red, white.

If you know me well at all, you know that a favorite color of mine is soft green, also soft yellow (and sometimes soft purples/lavenders).  CLASH!

I arrived home from work and Warren explained that this was our wedding gift from his boss, hand-delivered with gusto!   

HELP!  

Was our marriage to be over before a month was up?   [We lived together for over two years before we married, bought our first home soon thereafter.]

What to do?  "It's my BOSS" was Warren's refrain.  

They lived only a few blocks from us, so it wasn't like we could 'pretend' we still had it and just pawn it off on someone else. 

But there was absolutely NO WAY that thing was going to stay in our front yard, well-intentioned as it might be.

We 'slept on it' and came up with a plan --  we would tell them that it was simply too large for our front yard (truth) and we were so sorry but we were really not comfortable with it there.  AWKWARD.  

Can you guess what happened next?   Would you have done something differently? 

In any case, our plan backfired.   Lawn ornaments are really not our thing at all.  Handmade art or natural driftwood (lots of that in our yard today), yes.  But these painted garish-colored things are just not 'us' at all.

Anyway, back to the story. . . 

A few days later, I arrived home to see a veritable parade of much smaller lawn ornaments to replace the fountain! ! !  I remember there was a gnome, a rabbit, a turtle, a mouse family, a squirrel (the squirrel was fairly natural and the only one I liked, and it did sit proudly on our mailbox support frame/bar for many years). 

So... the squirrel went in the front yard and we hid the rest of them here and there in the back and side yards, much less visibly.  

And I wrote what is probably the most effusive LIE of a thank you note to his boss and boss's wife.

We have since moved a few times and no longer have any of the above-referenced mementos.