My name is Nancy — and that is the point of this story.

When my husband, Stan, and I got married in August 1967, we received a wedding gift from a couple who were almost strangers; Stan knew them only slightly, and I had met them once or twice. The gift itself — a copper pitcher — was fairly ordinary, but the note that accompanied it was truly bizarre, given the superficial nature of our relationship.

"You are our dearest friends," it said; "we will miss you so much" (we were leaving New York to attend graduate school); "you are very important in our lives."

Lovely sentiments all, but highly inappropriate considering how little they knew us.

The following December, we received a holiday card from this couple to whom we meant so much. On the card, handwritten above the printed message, was: "Dear Stan and Sue." Four months after being so important in their lives, they couldn't get my name right.

Ah, how quickly they forget…I sometimes wonder who Sue is, and I really would love to know who was meant to get that copper pitcher.