The gift that was not to be.

This Thursday when I reached work, on my port replicator was a small package. I was pleasantly surprised and quickly opened the lid on the cylinder box. I was about to open the contents in the see through polythene bag inside the box when my manager came to my desk. He talked about some project I was working one. Without thinking much, I had assumed it was a gift from him for the holidays.

I opened the contents in the plastic package and I found that it was decal. It was like an epiphany - the decal had the saying 'Family - is one that believes in one another'. My kid and the family are in India and I felt like this was a divine message for me. Epiphany or not, I decided to thank my mystery gift giver. I checked with my first suspect on my next meeting with him. My manager said that he did not and asked me to tell him if I find who it was as he found it amusing. I went around the work, preposterously thanking people only to be more desirous to solve the mystery when they said it was not them who was the generous gift giver.

As Murphy's laws states, you will find the thing you are looking for in the last place you look. So as one last attempt, I called my colleague who had already gone for the day. He said that it was he who placed the decal on my desk. The mystery had finally been resolved. I felt like Sherlock. But as it happens with me always, the story has a twist in the climax.

He mentioned that it was the item that I had ordered from him as part of his girl's Girl Scout donation drive at work. Well my euphoria was gone. It is not a gift as I had thought. But then again the story would be simple if it ends there. The item I had on my desk was not the one that I wanted. I had ordered a photo frame.

We have been in a photo and photo frame buying spree in the last few months. We have been decking the walls in our homes with the pictures of our baby. First it was the small frame for holding the regular 4X6 photo when the kid was 3 months. By the fifth month, the frames graduated to the 8X10 size. Recently, on the heels of my kid's sixth month, we have been to the picture people and were amazed by the quality of the pictures they take. We wanted to buy every picture they were showing us. They took about 16 good photos for 2 costumes. I am glad we did not take more costumes. Cooler senses prevailed after finding the price of each portrait-$18 per portrait picture. We still managed to end up buying 5 of them and the frame size graduated to the mighty 10X13. At this rate, we need to move to a new home like a mansion or something with really huge walls for the picture frames and their ever increasing sizes at the alarming rate of 35 sq. in./month((13*10-6*4) sq. in./(3 months)).

Since we were in this photo frame buying spree, I had ordered a picture frame from my colleague when he came for his daughter's girl scout donation drive. I wanted to kill two birds at the same time; bought the frames though they were expensive so I can feel good about contributing to charity. Santa must have said from the north pole -'Bad, Bad boy. No gift for you this year as you have been naughty'. Thus, the curtain had finally dropped on this drama in my life with me receiving an item I did not want in the guise of a deceiving epiphanous gift.