Dirty Santa

Last week at work we had our annual Dirty Santa potluck. Home-cooked chili and Christmas present stealing! It was a good day.

I put my present in a plain brown paper bag. I wasn't paying attention during my walk from the car to the office (5 city blocks), and I bumped into a staggering hobo.

We both dropped stuff, and he fell over. We apologized to each other, picked up our stuff and went on our separate ways. I didn't think anything of it.

Later, during the gift exchange, somebody walked over to the pile of presents and chose my brown paper sack. He opened it and proudly revealed the present to the entire room... a dirty half-empty bottle of whiskey.

Somewhere in downtown Tulsa, a hobo is staring at a Santa-hat teddy bear, trying to decide if it's a hallucination.

The bottle of whiskey quickly became the "favorite" gift at our exchange. Once the neck was disinfected a bit, everybody starting taking swigs.

Soon, the other presents were piled in the center of the room along with the lunch leftovers, a broken table and several old computers. A rowdy crew of I.T. professionals linked arms, started dancing and singing "Yo, ho, a pirate's life for me!" as the bonfire was set.

The Macintosh techs totally can't hold their liquor. I'm just sayin'.