June 4 -- Tonight there was a fundraiser. I had to go solo because Brian went to Matt's stag. I really wanted to just stay home with the kids but I wanted to support Lori who worked so hard to make it happen to help this little girl who has leukemia. Anyway, while I was there, I was putting some tickets in the teacup raffle baskets ( I never win but I always hope!) and then, I had this amazing teacup raffle moment. It was like nirvana. There on the floor on the dark side of the ballroom were four (four!) medium sized UConn jackets with hardly any tickets in them! It was like a dream come true. I bought extra tickets and put them in the baskets -- what a perfect gift for Luke!!!
They were supposed to pick the tickets at 10pm. By 9:30pm I was totally ready to leave but I was so hopeful -- with hardly any tickets in those baskets, I was sure to win! I was already imagining Luke's grin...
Silly me. Why do I allow myself to hope for these stupid material things?!! Don't I know better? Didn't my yoga teacher just today teach us the meaning of peace and how it is not related to things? Ughhhh! No. Like Lucy and Charlie Brown with the football, I stayed at that dance -- exhausted, head pounding because sometime, sometime, they were finally going to pick those tickets!! But the night wore on, the people kept dancing and nobody picked the tickets to determine the winners. As far as I knew, the raffle period was done. Just like it was at all the other teacup raffles I had been to over the years. They closed it after a period of time, picked the winners and then you could stay and dance or go home.
And so I stayed. And stayed. Until 11pm. And that's when the dream turned bad. I still see her -- Sandy M - a close friend of Lori's, the event organizer, hunched over the UConn Jacket baskets with a huge fist-full of raffle tickets. She had this excited glimmer in her eyes as she stuffed each basket. I went over to her. "It's 11:00 pm" I said. "Isn't this part closed? Aren't they picking the tickets now?" "Oh no," she answered giddily. "You can still buy tickets! I didn't even know these jackets were here!" she giggled and turned around and stuffed another ten tickets into the basket.
It's totally stupid, I know. But if I had seen her stuffing those baskets at 9pm when everyone else was doing it instead of sneaking in under the wire because Lori couldn't get to the raffle baskets earlier like she planned to do, I bet I would have won. Additionally, (and most importantly) I would have conceded the victory to my opponent and left earlier like I wanted to!!! But I stayed...like a stupid child, waiting for the possible prize. Only to get zamboozled by an unknown opponent in the 11th hour.
Will I ever learn?? I don't know. I really don't know. In the scheme of things, it's not important. But considering how exhausted I am -- yeah. I guess I was kind of pissed! And Luke would have looked so cute in that jacket... :)
No comments:
Post a Comment