I survived the company Christmas party

I avoided going to the annual office Christmas party the past 5 years. This year I caved in from the pressure of fellow employees. Honestly, it was the the raffle prize incentives that lured me. I heard others went for the same reason...biggest party turnout in years. There were a TON of raffle prizes offered. Lots of shopping and high end restaurant gift certs/cards, Napa wine train trip, a $750 Ahwanee Hotel stay in Yosemite, iTouch, whale watching excursion, and many more. There were choices of having dinner with a partner...very kiss ass opportunity for the engineers.

Each employee was given 10 raffle tickets and you can add your name to the prize of your choosing. Bubba and I got stuck in traffic and arrived later that I wanted. There wasn't much time to relax before dinner so I didn't remember to add my tickets to the raffle until after the meal ended. Two of the 3 tables of raffle boxes were gone (didn't know it at the time) so I just added to what was available. Fortunately the BIG prizes were left. I stuck 7 of my tickets to the Ahwanee Hotel prize and the other 3 to the $250 gift cert for travel tickets anywhere in the world. Then rushed back to the dinner table because I heard announcements of the night's entertainment beginning.

After the whole entertainment portion (our company's version of American Idol...yeah really), they started announcing the raffle winners. My boss won a $100 gift cert to a really nice restaurant in SF. A few minutes later I hear the hostess of the party say..."and the winner of the $250 travelstore.com gift certificate is.....Jean-oh-I-don't-know-how-to-say-her-last-name."

I was like OH SHIT I FUCKING WON! and FUCK I have to walk in front of 300 plus people right now and fuck me for sitting all the way on the other side of the long room at the country club. Oh yeah...and screw you for not knowing how to pronounce my last name by now....at least give it a try. Psh.

I walked (what seemed forever) up to miss hostess and pronounced my last name for her loudly (cuz I'm heavily buzzed by this point). I see the partner next to her with my prize in hand. My hand starts going for the prize and the partner grabs my hand first to shake it, then hands me my envelope. OOPS. A very want to crawl into a hole moment. Hopefully everyone in the front of the room was wasted by then and didn't catch that. On the way back to my table I hear people screaming my name, clapping, and holding out their hands to high five me. Weird. They must have been all wasted cuz most people in the office don't know who the hell I am.

After dessert I said my quick good byes and Bubba and I took off. Fortunately I was one of the many that walked away with a nice prize. It will help pay for the airfare for our Japan trip next year. Every little bit helps.