Someone gets engaged. The mazel tovs. The joy. And then the list. The list of what you need to buy to welcome the new addition to the family baruch Hashem.

The Rashbaum’s list for their daughter’s chassan went like this:

watch

esrog box

Shas

silver menorah

kittel

tallis bag

Kiddush cup

Mrs. Rashbaum — not being a specialist in wedding making and having gotten married with a pair of candlesticks and a used couch — almost faints when she hears all the things she needs to buy in the three months between the engagement and the wedding.

After the shock she gathers herself and begins to make a plan based on logic and budget.

After about ten minutes Mrs. Rashbaum comes up with an idea about the watch.

Her millionaire uncle Uncle Shai loves watches. He collects them from around the world. He has boxes of watches with the price tags still on them sitting in his cupboards like cookies and crackers.

She calls Uncle Shai.

“No problem” Uncle Shai says. Mrs. Rashbaum hears a little jostling some papers moving a drawer opening. “I have the perfect watch right here still in the box never touched.”

Mrs. Rashbaum arranges for the watch to be picked up across town and delivered to her so she can check it.

The watch is perfect kind of.

What’s not perfect is that she didn’t plan for her daughter to be home when the watch arrived. A little voice inside Mrs. Rashbaum’s head says: What if the chassan finds out the watch is from Uncle Shai and not his future in-laws?

The Rashbaums present the watch to the chassan.

One day later the kallah has a conversation with the chassan and shares with the chassan by accident and in innocence about her Uncle Shai how her Uncle Shai gave her parents the watch.

The chassan then calls Uncle Shai to thank him.

Talk about a flat on a single-lane highway.

Mrs. Rashbaum literally doesn’t know what to do. She feels it’s a scar she can never erase a moment in time she can never take back.

A few weeks pass. The watch story is still not sitting right with her not in her heart not in her soul.

She starts to really understand that wedding gifts are not always rational events. They are something different. Something higher than ourselves. That these moments are actually the DNA the building blocks for the future. How can she ever fix this?

A day later her daughter calls.

“Mommy” she says “the watch broke.”

“The watch broke?” Mrs. Rashbaum says with joy. “I’m so happy!”

Mrs. Rashbaum’s daughter doesn’t understand. “Why?” she asks.

“Because now we can buy the watch.”

Within a minute Mrs. Rashbaum is on the phone to the chassan. “I heard the watch broke. I’m so happy because now we can fix the watch story.”

That day they all go to the store. Mr. and Mrs. Rashbaum pick out several of the nicest watches in the showcase even though they’re way beyond their budget. The chassan insists that he really doesn’t need a new watch. Also maybe Uncle Shai will be insulted. “Before I got engaged I used my cell phone to tell time.”

“Listen in one month I’m your mother-in-law” Mrs. Rashbaum says. “If I say I’m getting you a new watch you’re getting a new watch. Which do you like?” she asks.

“All of them. Whatever you like.”

This continues. Finally Mrs. Rashbaum makes the decision. She takes the best. The chassan leaves.

The Rashbaums stay in the store with the watch the owner and the price tag.

The owner sees the struggle. He says “You know what? Take it for half price.”

That same day with great joy the Rashbaums have the watch delivered to their new chassan’s home.

Whoever said there’s no such thing as taking back time?