I have for years loved entering contests.  And mostly because I tend to get lucky.  Oh, I don’t win everything I enter, but I think I have a pretty good rate at scoring some great prizes.  My best friend Kit will not enter a contest with me because she says that guarantees I’ll win.  Okay, so I won the wardrobe from the Bon, the TV set and the airline tickets  but to my defense, she had just as much chance of winning as I did.

Last year, we went to a Paula Bejoun lecture.  Paula is the Cosmetic Cop and has a wonderful line of beauty products.  She talked about anti-aging, and colors and all sorts of things that I personally don’t really lose a lot of sleep over, so when Kit said, “Don’t enter the drawing, I really want to win,” because the drawing came with $200 worth of product and a personal consult with Paula herself. I tried to respect that request.  I really did. My little entry form just sat there, vacant and unloved. But just because I love to taunt Kit, I tossed my name in when she wasn’t looking, and two days later I got the call—I’d won.  The poor assistant who called me probably thought I was a madwoman because I just broke out in this crazy laugh and couldn’t stop, thinking how much fun it was going to be to call Kit and say “nanny-nanny boo-boo, I won!!!” Okay, you can do that with a friend you’ve known for nearly 30 years.

Now if you think Kit grumbles about this, it’s only a little, because being good friends, I usually share. And after I got done laughing manically at Paula’s poor assistant, I talked her into letting us both come.  So Kit got the benefit of Paula’s advice, and I got a bad case of hives from some combo she put on my face.  Really, I need to be more firm in sticking to my edict with make-up people:  Ivory soap and nothing else.  Thank you very much. The hives could also have been cosmic payback (or rather, cosmetic payback) for the years of taunts.

So onto a couple of weeks ago, I am driving to pick up the kids at school and the phone rings.  I didn’t catch much of the first part of the conversation, only the “you’ve won our drawing” part, and then I spent a few seconds being smug and thinking how I was going to call Kit, until the guy on the other end paused, and I could ask, “Who is this?”

“Dr. Doo, from  ?”

It takes me a moment to catch up.  “Dr. Doo?”

“Yes, you’ve won our Zoo Doo drawing.  When would you like to come pick up your Doo?”

Yes, folks. I won Zoo Doo.  As in a big pile of well-rotted, worm ridden, really smelly manure.  And quite frankly, it was better than winning a case of hives. So the other day, I grabbed up every big pail, empty garbage bag and garden trog I own and went and fetched home my piece of the elephant.

And when the kids got in the car later on, and it still smelled a little, and they asked me what I’d been hauling around, I could honestly say that I’d a bit of elephant.  You can’t say that everyday.

Come on, what have you won that you’ll ‘fess to?