I went to a church party today and played the pollyanna game. Some call it a Chinese auction. But whatever you call it, the premise remains the same. Everybody brings a wrapped mystery gift to the party, secretly places it on a table, and then prepares for the after meal fracas to land the best of the gifts. You pick a number that tells when you get to select your gift; the bigger the number the better. I'm usually in the top five, but out of twenty-five, that's not a real winner. Sound familiar now?
Usually there is a price set for the gifts. $10 is what I'm used to. But, people rarely follow the guidelines. If you're unlucky you'll get stuck with someone's regifted junk. If there is an expensive gift, you might get caught up in the hoopla of trading and stealing and retrading the same pricey gift. Until the church ladies passed a rule limiting the number of steals, the pricey gift could make the rounds of the party...again and again and again. One particular teapot caused a party to go two hours overtime. I was praying someone would drop the damn thing during one of the trades.
If you want to witness some church lady bad behavior, participate in one of these gift exchanges. One woman and her family would actively conspire with each other to steal and resteal those pollyannas which were deemed to be the most valuable. You could watch them gathered together at the corner of a table whispering and planning their strategies. Once on my turn, just to be a bad girl, I walked over to the smug little group and stole back a valuable gift. I thought one lady would blow her top and send her wig flying across the room. However, they were experts who outplayed me and got it back. Then, they folded their arms in front of them, hid their gifts, and glared daggers at anyone who dared to cross them again. Nobody did.
It's an unspoken rule that when a kid is playing and gets a gift they like, you leave the kid alone! Not old church ladies. I'll never forget one little gal who was delighted with her snowman, and totally gobsmacked when some woman (who didn't even go to our church!) took it from her. She ended up picking something totally crappy, and looked around the room with tears in her eyes. Eventually, someone rescued the snowman for her, but gee whiz, how could a grownup be so mean? And at a church function, no less.
I always bring good gifts because I am a talented bargain shopper. And, I have good taste. I admit that one of my goals at these parties is to bring the gift that everybody fights over. And, I am proud to say, I've been very successful at achieving that goal. But holy cow, I have ended up with some horrible pollyannas. One that stands out was the box of candy. I wasn't dieting then (or maybe I was) and I salivated while looking forward to chowing down on some chocolate creams as I watched movies that night. What a disappointment when I opened the box, and there was what I think is referred to as a "bloom" on the candy. You know, the white stuff that isn't bad for you but means the candy is probably old. Like a year old. Ugh!!!
But the candy wasn't the worst gift I ended up with, believe it or not. One year my final gift for our Secret Santa activity was a hand held can/bottle opener, the kind that punctures a triangle into a can. I'm sure there are some of you reading this who don't even know what that is. It is a good thing I have been both an actress and a teacher in my life, because I put on a smile and gave a thank you that made somebody think I'd been looking for one of those things all my life. Bad as that was, the absolutely worst gift I picked was a brown plastic door decoration, complete with plastic acorns, shabby brown plastic evergreens, and a thick coating of dust. When my friends stopped hiding their heads to cover their laughter, they stared expectantly at me and wondered how I'd thank my way out of that one. It was tough, but since I'd recently moved into my house, I gushed about needing just such a decoration to put on my front door. I scanned the room to see which old lady was smiling at my appreciation speech, but I never did find out who screwed me over. Needless to say, no one stole it from me.
Today's gift was a shimmery cranberry colored scarf. I love it. The little girl who captured the necklace I brought was happy too. The idea of these things is to have fun. And, today we did.
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