A Jilted Chef Serves Crow.

While serving as a superintendent early in his career, Terry Grier was invited to have dinner at the home of the school board chair and his wife on a Saturday night. Grier and his fiance Nancy had just purchased a house needing extensive repair.

They spent most of the day tearing out a bathroom and after completing the job returned to Grier's condo exhausted.

"The first thing I saw when opening the door was the red blinking light on my answering machine," Grier says. "I immediately looked at my watch and then at Nancy and in unison we said, 'Oh no!' (Actually, it was an unprintable reaction.) We had completely forgotten the dinner engagement scheduled to begin over one hour earlier."

The board chair's wife, who was an employee of the district, had spent the entire day cooking her "special" meal. Grier immediately called the board chair's house. No one answered on several tries so he recorded an explanation and apology.

He called the next day, repeated the apology, sent flowers and offered to take the couple to dinner at the wife's favorite restaurant.

A week later Grier found himself at an upscale Asian restaurant where he humbly asked the board chair's wife to order for the entire group. She began by ordering sushi--one of Grier's least favorite dishes. "However, we ate and appeared to enjoy it very much," says Grier, who is now in charge of the Guilford County, N.C., schools. "I realized that the sushi was really crow disguised as fish."