Friday, November 17, 2006

Winnah! Winnah! Winnah!

Went up yesterday evening to a Lions zone meeting in Houston. Members from all different clubs in southeast Minnesota gathered at the Houston community center for a dinner, club reports, speakers, and a raffle. As president of our local Lions club, I gave a club report, and apart from that, got to sit there at my table most of the evening.

The weird part of the evening came at the end, the raffle. See, I never win these things. Never. But last night... well, first of all I won a Green Bay Packers teddy bear. Which is cool, I'm from Wisconsin, and I guess that makes me at least nominally a Packers fan.

Then I won a fire extinguisher. An actual, genuine fire extinguisher. Which, it just happens, I have an identical model fire extinguisher in my kitchen which hasn't been touched or inspected in a good nine or ten years. So that one worked out.

Then I won a twelve-pack of bottled water. Good enough. Though by this time, you notice, sitting there in a large gymnasium-sized room full of people in purple or yellow Lions vests, I am the only person who has won, like, three prizes?

Then on top of all that, I won a fourth prize. A sack of I think it was cat food. Or was it cat litter?! At this point I put my foot down, declined the prize, on the grounds that I had more than enough prizes already. Though what was really going through my mind was that, being cat-free, what in the world was I going to do with something like 20 lbs. of cat whatever-it-was?!

I even made it back home in one piece, back up that twisting, winding road from Houston, with all those 30 mph hairpin curves. Didn't hit any deer, or nothing. Luck was with me.

Now if only I could figure how to take luck like that with me on a trip to Vegas.