White Elephant Chaos: A Left Right Story

Every December, Danielle hosts the white elephant party, and every December there is one gift nobody wants. This year it was a ceramic rooster. It was about eighteen inches tall and hand-painted, though not well. Its right eye looked straight at you. Its left eye looked out the window, like it had somewhere better to be.

Nobody would admit to bringing it. It showed up in a gift bag on the left end of the table, right next to a bottle of very good bourbon, and it stood there all through appetizers, staring at everybody with the right eye and judging them with the left.

Kevin drew number one. He went right for the bourbon. Danielle said you can't pick by shape, so Kevin closed his eyes, reached left, and came out holding a rooster by the neck. The room went quiet. Somebody on the right said, "Oh, no," very softly, the way you'd say it at a funeral.

Number two was Priya. Under Danielle's rules, you can open a new gift or steal one that's already open. Priya did not steal the rooster. Priya leaned right, then left, reached past the rooster, and opened the bourbon while Kevin watched.

Then the stealing started. Number three opened a heated blanket. Number four stole the blanket. Number five stole it right back. Number six tried to take it from the left while number seven tried to take it from the right, and Danielle had to remind everybody that a gift can only be stolen three times and that this one said machine washable, not tug-of-war safe.

Meanwhile, Kevin had a plan. Every time somebody got up, he slid the rooster a little to his left. By number eight, it was sitting in front of Marcus. Marcus looked down at it. Marcus slid it right back.

By number ten, the rooster had been slid left four times and right four times and was exactly where it started, in front of Kevin, looking at him with the right eye. Kevin took a long sip of someone else's eggnog and said he was fine.

Then it was Grandma Lou's turn. Danielle's grandma comes every year, and nobody has ever seen her open a gift she liked. Grandma Lou stood up, walked right past the bourbon, right past the blanket, and took the rooster out of Kevin's hands. "I've always wanted one of these," she said. Nobody could tell if she was kidding. Kevin got to open a new gift, and he was so relieved he high-fived the person on his left and then the person on his right. It was a gift card to a sandwich place that closed in October.

Everybody figured that was the end of the rooster. It was not. On her way out, Grandma Lou set it down right on the porch, "for Danielle," and left. Danielle carried it back inside and put it on the shelf to the left of the fireplace, where it watched the cleanup with its one good eye.

The next December, there it was again. Same rooster. New gift bag. Somebody had given it a little Santa hat. Nobody admitted to it. It went left around the room, then right, then left again, stolen zero times, opened by a guy named Doug who was new and didn't know. Doug is no longer new.

The year after that, it came back in a box from a very nice department store, and Priya opened it, and you could hear the scream two houses to the left. The year after that, Kevin brought it himself, wrapped in four layers of paper and a pillowcase, and still went home with it, which is what happens when you sit right next to Grandma Lou.

It's been six years now. The rooster has a name, which is Gary, and a little scarf. People have hidden him in coat closets, in car trunks, and once inside a turkey fryer. He always comes back. He might be in this room right now. He could be in the gift to your left. He could be in the gift to your right.

So pass it left. Quick, pass it right. Left again. Left. Right. Left! Left! Left! Nobody wants to be holding Gary when this story ends.

And it ends right now. Open what you're holding. If it's about eighteen inches tall and looking at you with one eye, congratulations. See you next year.