Thursday, December 29, 2005

10:16 PM


This has been the best Christmas ever. Boss-man Foreman took the Christmas Day schedule apart, gave Chase the day off, and informed me that I'd be working on Christmas in the wombat's place. Would he have done all that if he'd known he was doing me a favor? It got me off the hook with my mother, so no worrying about how I was going to get out of Christmas this year.

The caf has free meals for staff on Christmas Day, so I got my turkey dinner. Wilson came over that night. We ate Thai and watched the game; a couple of beers in I reminded Wilson that it was now Chanukah, so weren't we going to do any Chanukah stuff?

"Sure. Start peeling the potatoes." He didn't look away from the TV.

I felt like a heel. But I'm used to that, so I just got up and went to get the bag I'd left on the piano. I brought it back over to the coffee table, sat down, and shook out the dreidl and the gelt I'd bought last week.

Wilson looked over, shot me a look of loathing, and turned back to the TV. I ate one of the candy coins and started spinning the top.

"Spin, spin, spin little dreidl of mine, oh..." I crooned. The top fell on its side. "Oh look! I win!" I reached for some candy.

Another spin. "Well, look at that -- I won again!"

Another spin. I flicked a gold candy wrapper at Wilson. "Hey -- you ever get the feeling that the laws of probability aren't working and you're really just a character in a play by that Tom Stoppard guy?"

Wilson wadded up a napkin, threw it over the back of the chair at me, and turned around to the coffee table. He grabbed a handful of candy coins, pushed the rest towards me, and took the dreidl. "Like this." He gave it a spin. "Nun. Nothing." He handed me the top.

I took the top and set it going. "Okay, what's that mean?"

"Shin. It means ante up." He took the top back.

I threw in a couple of chocolate coins. "Language, please. This is sacred gambling."

Before long we'd eaten the candy and started playing for real money. He went home that evening a hundred dollars richer than when he'd arrived.

I got some revenge on Monday. Foreman barged in my office on Tuesday morning and found us going at it again. On Wednesday I discovered dreidl Yahtzee and we've been playing that for a couple of days. I think tomorrow I want to give dreidl baseball a try -- National League rules, of course, unless I start losing again. Once these eight crazy nights are over, maybe I'll see how the other team does it and have Chase give me tips on where I can find me some good bingo.

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Glad you had a good Christmas, Dr. House! Dreidl sounds like fun.

December 30, 2005 11:58 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I think I prefer the Prophetic Dreidl
game myself. Today, New Year's, has been pretty boring. Watching TV, went to see the movie Zathura, and drank a
Gingerbread Latte of all things. Plus, I had a glass of Cold Duck Champagne last night (think of a combo between beer and wine). Have a Happy New Year, Dr. House. Be a good boy and don't annoy Dr. Wilson too much.

January 01, 2006 8:49 PM  

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