From Muck to Luck

I could not sleep last night. My sister and I talked late into the night, until she fell asleep. I had my laptop, which allowed me to channel my feelings into yesterday's blog post. But my feelings were that way. I fell asleep around 0730, only to wake up two hours later.

I did not receive the gifts that I had listed for my parents to give me. I am too old to care about getting gifts from a "Christmas List" that my parents have me write yearly. But I do care, because it is a family tradition and everyone else participates in it. So it was somewhat painful to watch others receive the gifts they asked for while I received only one gift that I had asked for. That left me feeling disappointed. My parents did not give me money, either, which was unusual. I felt down about it. In addition, I felt pathetic to know that I was being disappointed by Christmas gifts. How childish.

Things started looking up later in the day when I discovered that my father had slipped a one hundred dollar bill into my pocket. That made me feel significantly better. I was still feeling somewhat down until it was time for the "adult gift exchange".

(The "adult gift exchange" is not an exchanging of adult novelty items, but rather a game played by the adults with similar rules to the White Elephant Gift Exchange played by many in the US. The name my family uses is "adult gift exchange".)

The original rules for entering the exchange were that participants must be 21 years of age, since the gifts often involved alcohol. However, as my sister and I were the only two of many cousins to be underage, this year we were allowed to participate. So it was our first time playing. The rules were discussed briefly before we played. I asked, "Wait, doesn't an item become 'dead' after being stolen a certain amount of times ?" The others looked at me and started grumbling angrily, saying things like "You've never played before; don't come here making up rules and such". So I left it alone.

There were eighteen participants. Each person drew to see which number they were. The participants choose a random gift from a pile of gifts that each participant must purchase in order to join the gift swap. Number "1" gets to choose the first gift, but also has the ability to choose from any other person after the final person has made their choice. So each player either choose a new gift from the pile to open, or takes one from someone who has already opened (at which point, that person repeats their turn). I drew "2", which is the worst possible number to draw. You are only able to see one gift, and your pick is completely random from the pile. At least "1" can go back and choose from ALL, with them being known. I was frustrated because there were only two numbers left when I drew. "1" and "2". Oh well.

I chose a horrifyingly ugly wreath with a bottle of wine when it was my turn. I cannot drink wine legally, and I have no intention of drinking alcohol in the future, even when I am of age. I had no way of knowing what was in the box. At that point, I felt like I had lost completely. No one was going to take my gift, and I would have no opportunity to take any later gifts that I preferred. I got my phone out and began chatting on MSN and AIM. I felt defeated and at that point, I was bored beyond belief. I stopped paying attention, until suddenly the boyfriend of one of my relatives said, "Well, if I take the wreath, I'll never have to worry about finding one of those again. Plus, I get a bottle of wine. Sounds good to me." And just like that, I was in the game again.

I spotted a picture frame that I noticed many were eying. I remembered someone saying something about one of the gifts being cash, so I looked around. Sure enough, I spotted a plastic box with cash in it in one of my uncle's hands. I wanted the cash, but I knew that some other people would be after that as well. I decided to take a high-value item. I took the picture frame. I sat down next to my mother who immediately said, "I would've thought that you would have taken the cash for sure." I thought to myself, "It's not about that. It's about planning." For a few more turns, I lost my item every time, but each time, I replaced it with another high-value item, based upon who would pick next. I ended up being stolen from almost every time. I ended up with the frame again, and I saw my sister looking at it with a strong attraction. I looked into her hands to discover that she had the cash. I saw it through the box. It appeared to be fifty dollars (which was the set limit for gifts). Suddenly, I had a perfect plan. I motioned to my sister to get out her Blackberry. I started texting out my plan:

"Tanner, I have a flawless plan. Since there are no dead gifts, we will create a perfect cycle. I know you want the frame, and I want the cash. If someone takes the frame from me, I will take your cash. You should then respond by taking the picture frame from them."

She replied:

"Oh, I get it! So if someone takes the frame from me, I'll take the cash back. Then you can get the frame back from them. It makes sense. We're sooo getting what we want."

Since both our items were highly valued by the participants, we dealt with a lot of switching. People figured out pretty quickly what we had planned. They began to get a bit angry, but could not say anything against it, especially since they had declared earlier that there were to be no 'dead gifts'. Eventually, everyone backed off, knowing that they could not stop our plan. I ended up with the cash, which was actually seventy dollars.

Afterwards, I felt like visiting my aunt (Technically ex-aunt; she and my uncle recently divorced. She lives next door to my grandmother's, where this gift-exchange was occurring). I hadn't spoken to her since arriving in South Carolina, and thought it would be nice to say "hello" and wish her a Merry Christmas. So I walked over.

She immediately started saying "I will pay you to fix my internet." I told her I would take a look. I went into her room and she said, "It says it needs to empty the cache." So I emptied her Internet Explorer's cache, then tried to open a webpage. The Internet worked. I had no idea why the cache had anything to do with it (I found out a few hours later that it had started working earlier in the day, but she had not touched it since then). She said "How much do you want ?" I told her that more than twenty dollars would be asking too much, and that she shouldn't pay me at all. However, before I could finish speaking, she had written me a cheque for thirty-five dollars. My income for the day was $205. She then told me, "You're free to use our Internet whenever you like. You fixed it, after all." I was glad of this, because I previously did not know if the divorce would make it uncomfortable for me to be in her house (I usually used her Internet when I visited).

My day started out bleak, but turned out fairly lucky and even a bit lucrative. I now use her Internet to blog and chat.

Again, happy holidays to all.