Chapter XXVII
Winning Odds: The Lunch Box Journal

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Story so far: While the whole group was insisting on a trip they came with a plan to go to Pondicherry for the weekend, but another possible place came to light – The Midnight Café, due to the ankle injury. While the decision was made purely on votes by hand flipping. The max votes were for the long weekend trip to the beach.

So, the plan was made to go tot Pondicherry and the day finally came. The journey was supposed to start on Friday night right after office. Gautham was the designated driver and it was his car that was being used for the trip. Since they were leaving right after their office ended for the weekend, the folks who weren’t staying near office had to bring appropriate luggage for the trip. As discussed Neil, Aryan, Gautham, and Akhil came with their bags. Madhav had to attend to his family so he couldn’t make it with them to the trip. And if they plan properly, they could make it through Madhav’s home as well. Sameer stays close to the office and hence he decided to get his things just before they started their journey. In short, the plan was set and everybody was ready for their luggage and high spirits in their heart.

The office was about to come to an end for the day. Sameer left office a little early to get his luggage since he stayed close by and the other already had their luggage with them. And when it was almost time for the others to leave, Sameer was at his home finishing up locking the door to his home and starting to the decided pickup point. Meanwhile Neil, Gautham, Aryan, and Akhil decided to have coffee while Sameer could start from his home. Akhil until that point was on the impression that they were going the Midnight Café all along. He thought that everyone else was just fooling around, which was what they don’t usually do, but well that’s what he had thought that all of the others were messing with him saying that they were all going to Pondicherry while the actual plan was going to that Midnight Café. He was so confident in his assumption until he went over the plan one last time while they had their coffee fix just before they were about to start the journey. As he was going over the plan, everyone was nodding a big No and corrected him that they all were going to Pondicherry and not to that Midnight Café since the former was in all ways a much better plan than that unknown Café at the city outskirts.

Akhil was still assuming that everyone else was still messing around with him until a second later he realized that they weren’t. Until then whenever they were all voting for the weekend trip, all the votes were to Pondicherry, including his. This voting happened quite a lot many times over the week just to confirm and not have any last-minute cancellation. While Akhil thought he was playing along with them saying that he was perfectly okay with going on the long trip with a little bit injured ankle and he could make do with the whole long trip plan. But now that he had realized that the plan was actually to go to the beach and have a sleepover there, he pointed out the injured ankle which would restrict him to the sand on the beach and won’t let him go in the water, and the whole point of going to the beach would be a fail. Well, the other four people could very well have a good time even if they had to carry him all around, but they still had to compromise while the odds were four to one.

While the plan shifted in Akhil’s favor, Sameer was completely oblivious of this change of plan when he joined them at the pickup point. If he had known, he wouldn’t have gotten a huge bag to the Café. He came to know the change of plan as he took his place in the car. And they were off to their changed plan. But there was still confusion floating around. They put it to a vote, again like they have had for the past week. The majority were still rooting for Pondicherry, but one odd diverted the votes to its favor. And they still a little longer in the confusion trying to come up with the plan.

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(To be Continued …)

Where did they finally decide to go? Was it the week-long planned Weekend Trip? Or did the odds end them up at the Café?
– Check out for new updates in the next post –

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The Lunch Box Journal

ak, mmxviii