Tangled Yarns: Winning by Losing

"Who won?" I asked.

Like an army of ants, the workers carried the mess away and disappeared into the kitchen, while Mitch and I stood with our parents. Cameras clicked like sticks burning and the judges scribbled and talked to each other.

"The results of tonight's competition are as follows," said a man through a microphone, "The scoring was scaled out of a possible 100 points. Contestant A (Mitch) managed to win 80 points, but then he had 78 points deducted for the last part of the meal, giving him a grand total of 2. Contestant B (me) managed to score to win 90 points, but because of his exceptionally disgusting manners in the last part of the meal, we deducted 150 points, giving him a grand total of minus sixty."

Nobody clapped.

The supermarket manager stepped forward with the towel, soap and flannel. He presented them to Mitch.

"Thank you!" said Mitch, beaming.

He walked over to me.

"These are yours," he said.

I accepted them with a big smile and shook his hand.



You see, Mitch and I had made a deal. We both thought the prize was so pathetic it wasn't worth putting on la-de-dah manners to win it, so we decided that whoever had the worst manners between us would be the winner. That way we both had a good feed, plus a lot of fun, and we'd also done something we'd always wanted to do: act like animals in a posh restaurant.

Do you think it was worth it?