Mission: Christmas

Posted by John

I don’t work at a gym. Nor do I work at a gay nightclub. As far as I know my coworkers don’t work at a gym or a gay nightclub either, at least between the hours of 8 and 5. Yet despite these facts, the conversations my good friend Chris described overhearing at the gym about caloric intake, portion size and fat content sounded strangely similar to conversations I’ve recently heard around the office… only from a slightly different perspective.

Last week a woman approached me and asked, “Would you like to participate in the Twelve Days of Gluttony?”

With a million thoughts racing through my head I stared backed at her with the blankest of blank expressions, not understanding what in the hell she had just asked me in the least. She could have said any number of other things to me like, “I farted in your tea,” or, “Dolph Lundgren is the most underrated actor of the past 30 years,” or, “I once breast fed a baby emu for three months back in 1994,” or any other statement that was completely unrelated to anything else and also completely ridiculous and I would have accepted it, maybe even responded to it, and moved on with my life like it had never happened. But when she said, “Would you like to participate in the Twelve Days of Gluttony?” I was just absolutely beside myself.

After several awkward seconds I finally pulled it together to say, “Umm… I’m not sure what that is…”

It turns out, 12 Days of Gluttony is almost exactly what it sounds like – For 12 consecutive days a different group in the division is tasked with the responsibility of bringing treats for everyone else in the division. “Treats,” as you can imagine, has a very broad definition but generally includes anything with your lifetime recommended allowance of sugar in it. After this was described to me I instantly thought, “Honestly we’re not going to actually do this, are we? This is a really terrible idea.” Unfortunately I was alone in that thought because everyone else was bat-shit crazy about 12 Days of Gluttony like Jesus himself was baking the brownies and frosting the cupcakes.

Aside from the fact that Jesus hasn’t participated (directly, to my knowledge), the 12 Days of Gluttony have not disappointed. Cookies, cake, pie, strudel, donuts… you name it. If you have ever picked a food item up and thought to yourself, “I don’t really need to eat this,” it has made an appearance on the Table O’ Gluttony. And it’s not like people have just been enjoying this little pursuit; it has been positively ravenous, like a school  of sharks masticating some chum.

As my friend pointed out, if you were to take any of the other Seven Deadly Sins and substituted it for ‘Gluttony’ everyone would be downright appalled. Just imagine the dirty old man in the electrical department with he overactive sweat glands coming in one day and being like, “Alright everybody, who’s up for 12 Days of Lust!?! Woo-hoo! Let’s get it on!” You would vomit then promptly report that dick worm to HR. Or if the boner in the structural group came in one day and was like, “I’m sorry, I can’t finish that work for you, I’m currently on day 6 of my 12 Days of Sloth. I’m really trying not to do anything other than breathe and maybe eat some Cheetos. Oh, wait… Wow, I just shit myself. Man, I’m so lazy I didn’t even know I had to go to the bathroom.” You would not hesitate to kick that guy in the teeth for being a complete piece of shit. But for some reason, somebody comes into the office like, “Who is ready for 12 Days of Gluttony???” and suddenly everyone is going ape-shit like the Jonas brothers are running around the place with their shirtless, pre-teen bodies glistening in the sunlight like little curly-haired, rosy-cheeked nymphs.

Someone actually came up to me the day before my group was the gluttonous providers and asked with more than a little spite if I was bringing a veggie tray. Fuck off already! It was two veggie trays! Two! It’s not like I’m sitting at my fucking desk eating a goddamn veggie tray everyday! I brought two trays to two different potlucks! Maybe if we didn’t have a goddamn potluck every month or 12 days of gluttony I wouldn’t have had to bring in two veggie trays!

After 6 days of Gluttony I can tell you who is really a big fan of this whole operation – the New Kid. After the Thanksgiving Potluck BBQ Ruffles incident I broke him of that pattern of eating potato chips for breakfast every morning. He actually went out and bought the biggest box of Cheerios Costco had to offer and a half-gallon of milk and brought them to work so he could enjoy some cereal for breakfast like a normal human being. Except the thing was, the milk went bad after like a week and he still sucks at life so he hasn’t made the effort to bring any more in, so he has like a pound and a half of Cheerios left but no milk. So the 12 Days of Gluttony couldn’t have come at a better time for him. He will literally burst into the office, throw his bag into his cube, and head straight to the gluttony table without even taking off his coat. It’s hilarious to watch him try to cut into the coffee cake with his frozen fingers because he sucks at life and doesn’t own gloves, then try to pick up a brownie and a couple Rice Krispies treats. He’ll be stuffing his face even as he’s still walking back to his desk and get like cupcake icing on his nose but not notice it for 45 minutes because his face is still numb from the cold. I wish I as making this stuff up.

Also as a result of the BBQ chip incident the New Kid had to step up to the plate for our day of gluttony and I have to admit, he did a pretty good job by bringing in a small crock pot with some melted chocolate for like a makeshift fondue thing. I didn’t try any but apparently it was a huge hit. The next day some woman who doesn’t even work in our department came by to say it was the best chocolate she’d ever had and wanted to know how he made it. It was awesome to watch this conversation unfold

New Kid: Uhh… well, I really just melted some Hershey Kisses and like two other types of chocolate I found at the store. It was nothing special…

Woman: Really? That’s it? There had to be more to it than that. It was so good.

NK: Well, I put some almonds in it too.

Woman: No, it wasn’t the almonds, it was something else.

NK: Oh yeah, well I also mixed in some alcohol.

Woman: You put alcohol in it??

NK: Yeah, I just dumped some whiskey in there to liven it up.

Woman: Oh, well, I see…

As she walked away, clearly a bit put off by that disclosure. The New Kid immediately came bounding over to my desk to gloat.

NK: Did you see that? I have people asking for my chocolate recipe!

Me: I did see it. I also saw how pissed she was to find out you poured a bunch of alcohol into it.

NK: Yeah, I don’t get that at all.

Me: Dude, you put booze in the goddamn chocolate!

NK: So? Why not?

Me: You fucking idiot, I’ll tell you why not. Either that woman is a recovering alcoholic and you just unwittingly pissed away 12 years of sobriety for her, OR she lives in the Southern Baptist Bible Belt for a reason and has never in her life even so much as tasted alcohol and it’s not like you filleted a red snapper in some cooking wine, you literally just dumped whiskey into a pot with some chocolate, so of course she loved it, right up until she gets back to her desk and finds out she made enough Xerox copies of her boobs for the entire office while she was wasted off her ass from your booze-a-rific fondue pot yesterday!

I’m still laughing about the stupidity of it.

Unfortunately for him he doesn’t have a lot of time to redeem himself because tomorrow is the annual Dirty Santa Gift Exchange. If you recall from last year, it was one big hot disaster all around, and particularly so for the New Kid. He forgot about it until the last minute so that morning he had to run to Walgreens and purchased the first thing he saw, which happened to be a signing Santa Clause face. If that wasn’t god awful enough, the head of the division was the one that got stuck with that shit gift. His only saving grave was the absolute atrociousness of the other gifts that were provided. Just to put it in perspective, the most popular gift was a bottle of white zinfandel.

So this time around I’ve been reminding the kid every day to go get his Dirty Santa gift so he doesn’t repeat the debacle from last year. I was doing lunch with him today when he confessed what his gift is going to be for tomorrow – Mission: Impossible I on DVD.

I just stared blankly back at him in disbelief until I could compose myself enough to say, “Yeah, yeah… that sounds like a good gift,” when really in my head I was thinking, “What. The. Fuck. Of all the millions upon millions upon millions of DVD’s the world has to offer, how in the fuck did you settle on Mission: Impossible I??? Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying it’s a bad movie; I’m just saying it’s a horribly bad Dirty Santa gift. A Christmas Story, Elf, Christmas Vacation, The Grinch, The Thomas Crown Affair… All of these would have been acceptable DVD choices for Dirty Santa. Mission? :? Impossible? I? I don’t get it. Seriously, what was the thought process that led to this decision???”

I briefly thought that I should set the kid straight and save him from the inevitable embarrassment tomorrow but then the strangest thing happened. Somewhere deep in the back of my head I heard this sound. At first it was barely audible and I wasn’t even sure what it was. But then it kept getting louder and louder as if it was getting closer and closer until finally it was unmistakable…

*Choo, Choo! Choooo, Choo!* “All aboard! All aboard the Disaster Train! Next stop: Humiliationville! All aboard!”

And I’ll tell you what, when I heard that train a-comin’, I wanted to be the first one to get on board and hand the conductor my ticket.

And I’ll tell you another thing, I just hope his Disaster Train arrives at the station before mine does tomorrow because my gift is either going to be badass awesome, or it’s going up in a huge, raging blaze of glory. Stay tuned…