When I was 23 I fell in love with a brass-chased pewter box at Gump’s.

It was made in the shape of a duck, it came in two or three sizes, and the perfect one sold for about $20. It seemed like half the people I knew got married in the next two years. For every one of those occasions I went to Gump’s and bought one of those boxes as a wedding gift.

Sometimes I had it sent. Sometimes I took it away with me. The regular Gump’s wrapping (real satin ribbon with knot on the bottom so the box never did stand up straight) was good enough.

Finally, after a couple of years of this, I bought one of the boxes for myself. I think I even stood at the wrap desk waiting for it to be packaged the way all my previous ducks had been.

I took it home. I loved it. I still own it.

And I never bought another one of those boxes again.

What the heck? It’s not like I stopped loving them. It was kind of like once I had one, I needed it to be as exclusive a possession as possible: no buying them for friends. I felt a little small about that, but I still liked the box.

That wasn’t it. There was no need to feel small.

It’s so clear now. I kept buying the box for others because I wanted one myself. Each wedding presented the question to me: what would I want if I were the one getting married? And the answer kept coming back: pewter duck box.Until I acquired one. The next time I asked myself the wedding gift question, the answer had changed.