Technically, "Dave" wasn't one of the choices

Laura and I went to a potluck for her friend's birthday. Once we got there, Laura realized she'd forgotten to bring the hostess a promised short story. "I'll mail it to you," said Laura to the hostess.

Well shucks, as long as she's mailing something, we might as well get something else to put in the envelope. Like, for instance, this coaster belonging to the hostess.

Fig. 1: Freedom from culpability

We put everything in the envelope and drove to Mary Jean's house, where wedged the envelope inside the screen door, rang the doorbell, and ran for Laura's car. We sat in the car and watched three people come out of the house and do a not-terribly-impressive job of looking for us, and then we spied on them as they opened the envelope and made our day with their reactions.