Spreading the Christmas chair

It was one of those office Christmas parties where all I wanted to do was wear my new boots with my glittery dress. Though the Christmas committee had been publicising the lucky draw prizes for weeks now and there was a general buzz about them, I wasn't too bothered. I have been generally lucky with lucky draw stuff since I was a kid, so I thought I should win something at least.

The committee had also been publicising the theme of the party for weeks, which for some weird reason was 'glitter'. I thought it was an extremely discriminatory theme. Firstly, how the heck are guys supposed to glitter up? Secondly, who the heck wants to look at glittered-up guys? One of my colleagues in a desperate attempt to find some ideas on how guys can glitter up, googled for a phrase involving "guys" and "glitter", and let's just say the results were such that I can't disclose them here - after all, this is a family bar.

Anyway, as we settled down in the Esplanade Room in the Carlton hotel amidst the glitterati (quite literally), there were speeches and wine and food at the party, but no one was really interested. Everyone was just waiting for the lucky draw. They started announcing the lucky draw prizes with the lowest value first, and threw in a game once in a while. I was totally rooting for our table to win the 'Identify the carol and sing it' game, because it seemed to be intellectually the most stimulating one. They were showing the clues on the screen and the table that could crack the most codes and sing the most carols would win. However, I completely forgot that though I am good at cracking clues, I am hopeless at carol lyrics. Bollywood lyrics I know, but carol lyrics? Ahem. So the high point for me was when I cracked the most difficult clue, and my colleague seated next to me actually knew the lyrics. (The clue was 'ABCDEFGHIJKMNOPQRST' and the answer was Noelle. No 'ell', geddit??).

Then they started calling out the top ten lucky draw prizes. I knew that my name had been evading the hand of the 'picker' because I was meant for greater things that 200-dollar vouchers. But by the time they got to the top three prizes and hadn't called my name, I started to worry a bit. They called out the top three prizes by extension number. So when it was time for the first prize, and they called out "Extension number 8...2...5..." I turned to my colleague and said, "Dammit."

"What's yours?" She asked.

"Umm... 8242." I answered.

Before disclosing the last digit, they asked all the people whose extension numbers started with 825 to stand up so that there would be some suspense in the room, and also each candidate could look at the competitors. The rest of all just looked at all the standing parties and said "Damn you, people."

And then they called out the last digit.

"It's 2!!"

Suddenly everyone looked confused. None of the people standing were doing the victory dance. The announcer then went on to announce the name.

"And tonight's grand prize winner is... SAYESHA!"

HUH?

I looked around. Everyone was either giving me confused or dirty or murderous looks.

"My extension is 8252?" I wondered.

"Sayesha, could you come up here and collect your grand prize?"

Still in a state of daze, I said, "Uhhh... okay!" Obviously at that point in time, it was pointless to do the Miss World "Oooh I won I won" hands on the cheeks and round eyes expression.

(I really got a big round of scolding from everyone later. You win the grand prize and all we get is a "Uhhh... okay!"??)

So I went to the stage, collected my grand prize, and sensing that people were still wondering why I hadn't stood up when they announced the first three digits, decided to come clean.

I took the microphone and addressed the room.

"I'm sorry. I never call myself. That's why I didn't know my extension number."

At least some of the hurts looks changed to forgiving ones, while others still couldn't believe I had just won a OTO Master Relax music-sync massage chair worth $1880. Well, I couldn't either. But I had I had! Yeay! People play musical chairs at parties, I had won myself a musical chair!

The reactions of the people were quite varied and interesting.

"Sayesha, e-bay it! You can get at least two thousand dollars for it!"

"Sayesha, no don't sell it! Keep it! It's a great prize!"

"Ship it to your parents in India!" (Not a bad idea, just that the shipping charges may marginally exceed the cost of the chair which I never paid for.)

"Sayesha, bring it to office and substitute your regular chair with it!"

"Sayesha, my office has a lot of extra space... ahem." That was my boss. So I told her, "This is unbelievable! Everyone is eyeing your chair, and you are eyeing my chair??"

But the best one came from my friend BH who suggested that I take it to the office and keep it in the pantry, install a coin system, and let people use it when they want. At the end of every week, I collect my earnings. Sounds fab to me.

Now that's what I call 'spreading the Christmas chair"! ;)


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