volare - part 1 (the bet)

date: september 29, 2005
bet: will olive make out with mason in his office?
stakes: lunch and one week of chauffermanship (if olive loses)
winner: ?
loser: ?
destination: volare (201 east grand)
cost: $42

olive: ladies and gents, you are about to witness an o & m first. due to the highly awesome nature of this bet, and the seriousness of the bet stakes, the volare review warrants two (2) separate posts. at this point, mr. mason had managed to weasel himself three consecutive wins and was thus quite close to having me as his personal driver for seven effing days. enter the ultimate bet: would i, as they say, "french" mason at the office, in his office, in fact.

now, since the beginning of the throws, mason has been chomping at the bit to get my tongue in his mouth during working hours, and i have been vehemently opposed. until now. the genius of this bet is that it makes mason a winner either way, so he'd be a fool (A FOOL!) to refuse. if i make out with him at work, victory is mine and i don't have to be a chauffeur, but mason also gets his wish. if i don't, i remain committed to my non-office-makeout stance, but i'm punished by having to haul mason around, not to mention the unending ridicule i would surely receive from him and on the blog. isn't that so, mason?

mason: i wouldn't go so far as to say that you'd be ridiculed, but you probably wouldn't be able to show your face in public ever again. or at least in the public parts of town where people know who you are. regardless, let's just say that this bet caused quite a stir of excitement and anticipation that was felt in the loins of millions. would olive sacrifice her professionalism to avoid 4am runs to la bamba's? i, for one, didn't think so. you see, when olive said that since the beginning of the throws i have been chomping at some sort of bit to get her tongue in my mouth, she was only half right. in fact, as any man who works in a similar environment as us i'm sure will agree, a tongue is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to office shenanigans. but it's a start. and without a start, as they say, there can never be a finish.

now some of you may be thinking that because of the nature of this bet, it was somewhat skewed in my favor. while it's true that no matter what happened i would be rewarded with either an explicit office makeout session or my own personal driver, it's also true that olive was given a choice, whereas a traditional bet would have left her at the whim of the betting and lunching gods. and let's be honest, the B&L gods have not exactly been casting rainbows in olive's direction as of late.

so the bet was about to be made, but knowing olive's tendency toward sneakery, i felt we needed to lay out some very specific ground rules so as to avoid any confusion regarding the outcome of the bet. those ground rules went as follows:

1 - from the day the bet is consummated by a handshake, olive would have until the following thursday at noon (lunch time) to french me at the office. if she didn't, she would assume her new role as my chauffeur and drive us to a lunch destination of her choosing where she would not only pay for our meal, but also drive us back to work afterwards. she would also go down in olive and mason history as the first person ever to lose four bets in a row.

2 - should olive decide to go ahead with the french, it would need to take place in my office, which just happens to be located directly next to our bosses office, during regular business hours.

3 - the french would have to last a minimum of twenty seconds and would need to, at least once, accelerate into what has become known in certain circles as a "deep french." i'm not sure this requires any further explanation, but if it does, your confusion can surely be quelled somewhere else on the computer internets.

4 - finally, even if it wasn't the case, olive would need to at least appear to be enjoying herself. after all, i wasn't doing this merely for my own edification.

and so the bet was consummated. it was made on a thursday, which meant that olive had nearly a week to decide whether or not she wanted to win the bet (talk about pins and needles). what's more, it meant that for 5.5 days, olive represented the seldom-manifested yet strangely awe-inspiring determining factor of whether mason was going to win or win. now that's what i call power.

olive: yes, drunk with power, i could barely think of anything but the task at hand. an additional rule was thrown into the mix to ensure that the bet, should i go for the gold, would remain somewhat civilized. thus, the french had to take place from separate sides of the desk, helping to minimize mason's ability to put his grubby little paws on me.

so, i came to work the next day having made up my mind to win the bet. the true challenge would be in mustering the guts to make my move - oh boy, was i nervous. but the odds were in my favor. half the office was absent on this particular day and the rest were working with doors closed, which on a friday, can mean that people are either in meetings or busy recovering from a thursday night on the town. anyway, the office was quiet, i was on fire and mason didn't suspect a thing...