Trophy Time!!!

Both of you (all three on a good day!) already know that last year at the office Christmas party I drank too much egg-nog and knocked over the tree was transfixed by one impossibly large present at the gift exchange. "It's shaped just like a trophy," I thought, "but it can't possibly be a 4-foot-high trophy. So what on Earth could it be? I must find out!" It was a trophy, and despite my best efforts to give it away (for the past year, virtually everyone who has come into the house has been declared champion of something and offered the trophy) the trophy sat in our living room.

As this winter approached, I decided to give it away at the office Christmas party, where re-gifting is a valued tradition, but nobody was going to open the giant trophy-shaped present this time around, so I had to get creative. So I took the trophy apart and rebuilt it with hinges and locks so that I could fit it into a 2-foot high box. Here's how it works:

So I wrapped it up and snuck it into work, where I hid it in an empty cubicle. Then I printed a document asking whoever found the printout to find the gift and add it to the pile. This way, nobody would know it was from me, since it was still a waaaay oversized present and people were sort of expecting me to try to regift the trophy. I guess I got away with it because somebody got fooled:

opening the mystery gift...

Everybody loves the hinge action!

Liz couldn't believe she got fooled.

But I think this picture captures her true ambivalence about the trophy. Meanwhile, over her shoulder I think I spy a plan hatching...

A gift theft! Somebody actually knew what they were getting and wanted in - he says he's got big plans for sprucing it up to re-gift next year.