Bracketeering

My office, like virtually every work-place in America, has a March Madness bracket pool. I’ve only participated in these shenanigans once before, during my first year of law school. My group of all-dude friends had a pool going and included me as the novice factor. I guessed at random and didn’t do too badly (“for a girl”). It was actually really fun and made going out and rooting for the games that much more purposeful, which is, of course, the point. The last few years I ignored it, more or less, except when BC was playing (and, uh, losing).

Last week a firm-wide email went around announcing the office pool and since it indicated the entry fee per bracket would go towards “charitable donations” I decided to go ahead and enter. I was only going to do one, but then my competitive spirit kicked and, hey, the money was going to charity, right? I ended up turning in the maximum three brackets.

Yesterday, a partner sauntered by my office trying to sell raffle tickets for the March Madness kick-off lunch. I told her I filled out three brackets and was making that my charitable donation. She gave me an odd look and I asked what I was missing – turns out, I’d been had! The “charitable donation” line in the bracket email was totally a joke, and the pool is absolutely a for-profit betting operation. She laughed out loud at my gullibility and I definitely felt like a doofus. So then I bought a handful of her raffle tickets for a cat shelter out of guilt and recompense.

Now that I've paid into a money-laden bracket tournament I kind of want to win, or at least not embarass myself. Too bad I know nothing about any of the teams and guessed wholly at random, except for my particular prejudices (location, mascot, hottie factor, etc). I picked Georgetown, Baylor and BYU to win it all in my respective brackets. Because I love the Catholics, Baptists and the Mormons, in that order? Oh, whatever.

And I didn’t win the raffle at lunch today either. At least the cat shelter got my money.