Isn't My Financial Security Worth Doing Nothing For?

March 28, 2004

Isn’t My Financial Security Worth Doing Nothing For?

Boy, Sunday afternoon TV is crap. Cooking shows, political crap, and crappy ‘B’ movies from fifteen years ago. Bleh. At least I had some shows taped on TiVo for the first few hours, but now I’m all out. And I’m watching some dude eat haggis, or some shit like that, on FoodTV. At least I think it’s haggis — whatever it is, it was cooked in some kind of animal organ or other, so I hope to hell it’s haggis. I’d hate to think there are other nasty concoctions out there stuffed in a tubeful of sheep shitter and called ‘food’.

(Yeah, that was a little over the top, wasn’t it? I really would have prefered ‘cow colon’ — or even ‘pig pooper’ — to ‘sheep shitter’, frankly, but hey, it’s haggis. It’s made from sheep. I’m just working with the material I’m dealt, you dig?)

Anyway, surviving Sundays is simply a matter of perservering until prime time, when the shows heat up again. Now some sissies and lazybones out there take the easy way out on Sundays, and go off to church, or do chores, or play sports… well, none of that cheating shit for me, folks. I park my ass on the couch at noon, and I stare at the television like a trooper until the good stuff comes on. Sundays are a marathon; don’t try this at home without a lot of on-ass training, people. You could strain a glut or something.

Okay, on to other matters. Speaking of Sundays and televistion and such, I’ve got some big news for you folks — I’m gonna have my mortgage paid for me. Yeah, seriously — and real estate in New England is frickin’ expensive, too. Plus, we’ve only had our house for a year, so the mortgage is still way up there in the stratosphere; this is gonna be a lifesaver. And it’s so simple, too — all I’ve gotta do is sign up on the Trading Spaces: Home Free area on Discovery.com every week, after the show airs each Sunday night. Thankfully, I don’t actually have to watch the show — I dig the home improvement stuff, but a full hour of Paige Davis is a little like mainlining cane sugar and chasing it with cheerleader juice.

(That’s ‘cheerleader juice’ in the way-too-perky, ultra-upbeat, impossibly-manic sense, by the way, and not the incredibly hot, very naughty, sexy way.

See, if I were gonna start up with that other kind of cheerleader talk, it’d have to involve that carpenter on the show, Amy Wynn. Come on, fellas — and ladies, if you like — picture her with a tool belt and pom-poms. Oooooooh, mama. Now that’s entertainment.)

Anyway, that whole ‘getting my mortgage paid’ thing is gonna be sweet. All I gotta do is enter the sweepstakes thingy on the site every week, and then not get picked for all the piddly weekly prizes, like the patio furniture, or the soft drink dispenser, or the reciprocating saw.

(Okay, so those aren’t exactly ‘piddly’ prizes. And I didn’t even get to the two-grand Home Depot card, or the flat-screen HDTV. Still, they pale in comparison to the megabucks that would go towards the mortgage. Now that’s some goin’-around money, brothers and sisters.

By the by, though, what the fuck is a ‘reciprocating saw’? It only saws if you saw first? Or if it cuts you, you’re allowed to cut it back? Who names these dumbass tools, anyway? It just doesn’t make any sense.)

So, anyway, the trick is to submit these entries at just the right times every week to avoid being picked in that drawing, while also maximizing the chances that I’ll hit the big kahuna at the end of the game. It’s a very delicate operation. In week one, I determined that the optimum time would be 11:38pm. Last week, it was 10:12pm; tonight, it’s gonna be 8:49pm. Of course, in week two, there was no optimal time. Crazy, isn’t it?

(Okay, okay, so I forgot. In the grand scheme of my plan, it’s not going to matter. Or, if I lose — oh, the humanity! — then I’ll blame it on that week. It’s an easy excuse. See, I’ve got this all worked out.)

However, I can’t cover all the angles by myself, and that’s where you come in. You, and thousands of your closest friends, that is. Like I said, I’m all about maximizing my chances. So I need all of you, and all of the people you know out there, to make sure that you don’t, even accidentally, enter this contest, all right? Just go to the web site, learn all that you can, and then get on the horn with all of your friends and family, and tell them — tell them all — that this is not the contest for them. Let ’em play the Powerball, or try to get on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire or something; this one is mine. Just let me have this one.

Now, I don’t ask for much from you folks; I think you have to agree that I’ve been perfectly reasonable around here. I love you people; you know that. You my peeps. But right now, I’m looking for a few hundred thousand dollars, so I’m asking you to just step aside, okay? Tell you what — you do this for me, and I’ll buy you something off your wish list. That’d be nice, right? Just a little token of my appreciation for staying the hell out of the way in this sweepstakes. Great. Okay, then.

Well, I’m glad we had this little chat. And I can’t wait till I can sit down and get you folks those nice little gifticles off your wish lists. All I gotta do is get that mortgage check, and you’re in. So wish me luck, people, and we can all win on this one. I knew I could count on you.