It’s Father’s Day, and unfortunately, I have dropped the ball in sending a gift to my dad.  Now, it’s probably fair to say that, much like his father before him, my dad is a tough person for whom to purchase gifts.  Not because he’s ungrateful or critical of gifts.  Far from it.  It’s really just a minor by-product of both heredity and having lived a good life and being able to have the things you need or may just want.

So if dad needs something, or if he gets a rare urge to indulge a whim, he’s fortunate in these economic times to still have the financial ability to buy for himself any of the kinds of things a child may think of sending as a Father’s Day Gift.

Still, my lovely wife and I do try to come up with ideas of things that we may be able to find that he would like.  Sometimes small, kitschy things that may go with the house and my parents’ general decor.  And this year, at Easter, we were actually way ahead of the game when we realized that we had found something that would work well as a Father’s Day idea.

For Easter, we went with Christine’s family to Lambertville, NJ, an artsy community about a half hour northwest of Lawrenceville.  There are many nice shops and restaurants in Lambertville, and for Easter, we made reservations for brunch at Lilly's on the Canal.  If you click through the link you can check out a menu - it’s a nice, eclectic American bistro type of place.  Casual, not too pricey, and everything we’ve had there has been good.

But they have one thing in particular that we thought would be perfect for dad.  To serve water and soft drinks, the restaurant uses large, probably 20 oz or so, red plastic cups with the “Lilly’s” logo [top left corner on their web site if you’re interested] in white.  They’re essentially like the red plastic Coke cups you’d find at pizza places.

As my parents have in their kitchen a nice framed sign that was given to them years ago that advertises dinner and dancing nightly at a different “Lilly’s” restaurant in another part of the country, we thought it would be a perfect complement to that for them to have 4-6 “Lilly’s” cups for summer beverages and general use.

So I asked the hostess before we left if it would be possible to buy some of the cups.  She was hesitant to allow it, and said it really wasn’t her decision to make, which is completely understandable.  But she promised to contact the owner, who was not in that day, to see if she would sell us a few cups, and she would let me know.  She took my phone number, and said she would call me.

A few days passed, and I had not heard from “Lilly’s,” so I thought perhaps the next route I would try would be to use the “contact” link at the restaurant’s web site, explain the reason for my request, and make it easy for them to say, “yes, of course, we can send those right out.”

Didn’t happen.  Rather than replying at all, my email has gone unanswered.  And this is where I largely dropped the ball in not continuing to try to contact the owner or someone else with the authority to release 4-6 precious red plastic cups.

So this weekend, with Father’s Day now upon us, and no gift on its way to Indiana, I reformulated my idea and approach.  Yesterday, I called “Lilly’s” again, and asked about the possibility of buying some cups.  My thought was that if they would agree, I could drive up, get the cups, take a picture of them, and send it electronically so that dad would know what was on its way.

But while the girl who answered the phone promised to get my question to someone who could answer it and call me back, that never happened.

Undaunted, I told Christine that I would drive up to Lambertville and try again in person.  Surely given the fortunate coincidence of the restaurant owner and my family, and the reason for the gift, I would be coming home with at least 4 cups [note - I had now lowered my target in my own mind in the interest of trying to seal the deal].

The same hostess was at the front door that I spoke to at Easter.  When I reminded her of my request back then, she said she remembered me asking, and that when she asked Lilly she was told it wasn’t possible because they want to protect their logo.  I realize that probably sounds like a really solid reason to give someone when you just don’t want to be hassled by people trying to buy your cups all the time, but it’s not very convincing to a lawyer.

So, I politely repeated my request and explained that it would be a perfect Father’s Day gift given our family’s last name, and that the cups would be going to a kitchen in Indiana 800 miles away.  She was nice enough to then go ask the manager if something could be done.

The manager, who I’m sure was very busy as he was in the open kitchen in the middle of the restaurant dealing with a lot of food being prepared and a still full lunch crowd at 2:30 p.m., really had no time to discuss it and simply gave a quick shake of the head and a no in passing as he went about his other business.

The hostess returned, explaining that it just wasn’t possible.  She then commented on the cup being used as a pen holder on the hostess stand, and how the design gets really scratched up over time.  I’m not sure where she was going with that, but in my mind, all it meant was that the cups weren’t disposable, but they are replaceable, so they likely order more when they need them.  Seems like unloading four somewhat scratched cups for cash money would be a smart business decision.  But what do I know?

She then went on to tell me the names of two web sites, one of which I’ve already forgotten, where I could have cups made cheaply.  So apparently if I were to copy the “Lilly’s” logo from the restaurant web site and submit it to have my own cups made, never telling “Lilly’s” what I’d done, they’d be ok with that.  A curious twist on the whole “protecting our logo” position I was given 3 minutes earlier, but there it is.

Now, having driven home pondering this situation, I find myself wondering how the lessons my father and grandfather taught me in the way they live life and treated people in their own business might guide me in figuring out what, if anything I do from here.

Aside from having grown up with my dad around, I also had his father, Horace, until just after I graduated from college.  Grandpa was more a man of actions than words, and one story from later in his life seemed immediately appropriate.

It seems that cousin David was on spring break in college one year and visited Nana and Grandpa while they were in Florida.  Of course, Nana and Grandpa took the guys out for dinner while they were there, and I think they went to the Boathouse, a restaurant in Sarasota where our family has vacationed for years.*

A problem arose when dinner was over and Grandpa realized he did not have his wallet.  Thinking quickly, he suddenly announced to the Sigma Chi fraternity brothers, “You boys ever heard of dine and dash?”

Of course, with Nana there, this plan of action never came to fruition, but still, it apparently impressed the college guys no end that someone’s grandfather was “cool” enough to think about skipping out on a dinner check.**

Following Grandpa’s example, should I then consider a dinner party at “Lilly’s” with two or three other couples, and stashing our water glasses in an oversized purse in order to finally get what I’ve offered three times to pay for, and which gets replaced periodically anyway?

But that’s not the right thing to do.  It’s not my property, and they have a business to run, so swiping cups would be wrong all the way around.

However, just hypothetically speaking of course, and I would never do this, what if I went to “Lilly’s” for lunch or dinner sometime and left an additional $20-$30 on top of my tab and tip, with a note thanking them for the cups?  It would be wrong to do this, even, but perhaps less wrong given the financial restitution supplied in order to have the cups replaced the next time they place an order with their vendor.

For now, we have no cups.  But that may not be the case by the end of the summer.

Happy Father’s Day, Dad.  I love you.

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* - My dad emailed to correct me on the restaurant, originally mis-identified as Moore’s on Longboat Key.  Thanks, Dad!
** - Due to my increasingly faulty memory, my beautiful wife had to correct my telling of the “dine & dash” story.  Sorry for any confusion for anyone who read my original, incorrect version.