Not got paid for tutoring??

[lolipop2405]

So I have been tutoring for a pupil for over a year, and they usually pay me each week.
However last week, they gave me some lovely Christmas gifts, and in the flurry of me going out to my car with the presents I didn't realise till I got home that I hadn't been paid.

Then I began to think that the presents were instead of a payment this week, and now am embarrassed to ask the Mum for last weeks payment!

What would you do? Do I just wait until I go again this week and mention that I didn't get paid last week? Or did I get paid and I've dropped it in their front yard? Or do I leave it and say nothing, and get paid as normal this week, incase they meant gifts as payment?!

Please advise!! Thank you

Thanks to all for your replies, it's just been a bit of a rubbish week and this is only 1 more final straw as it were!

I think I'll just have to suck it up this time, as if I start to speak to the Mum I might get upset and become adamant that she didn't pay, and then things will become more awkward than they already are.

I'll say I didn't find it, ask her where she left it, as this might help trace it, and say I must have dropped it and probably leave it at that.

That's not fair though is it? Did the client say that she had given you the money? Nobody deserves to be taken advantage of.

I would definitely ask to be paid by bank transfer in the future.

No she has not outright said she did pay me. But said that she couldn't find what I had 'dropped'- meaning she thinks she gave it to me.

No it's not fair, but probably my own fault for not checking right away/asking that night.