Alpaca Surprise

It seems as though most of my waking time the past two to three weeks has been spent going to doctors or hospitals for my father-in-law, father, wife or myself - 13 trips to be exact. Except for paying bills, trying to schedule a contractor to take care of our mold problem, visiting my ill brother, and doing church business, it seems as though I've thought about little else. So on Sunday when my wife asked me for computer help to send an entry to station WDAC-FM, I was glad to take a break and help her out. It turns out that she had heard on the radio that Eastland Alpacas of Mt. Joy was offering a free gift certificate to a listener whose name would be drawn from entries on Monday. To enter you had to find the answers to five questions about alpacas and send them to the station in an e-mail. She had already done the research and just needed help with the e-mail. With my help she accomplished this quickly. Afterwards the thought entered my mind that maybe I should also enter. I didn't find anything in the rules that would prohibit this so I entered using my e-mail account. I didn't even think it was worth mentioning this to her, after all I never win anything. On Monday morning, while driving to take my dad for more tests, I heard announcer Mike Stike say that he would announce the winner later and that it was a man. I told my wife that I was sorry that she didn't win and promptly forgot about it. That night I received an e-mail from a friend offering me congratulations. Two others followed. I still thought it was a mistake since I had heard nothing from the station. Then, this afternoon, my wife checked the station's website and saw that I was listed as the winner. So that is my "alpaca surprise" - a gift certificate for $250! I think that this is the first thing I've won in a drawing since I won a barrel of groceries about 55 years ago. It is a welcome surprise and diversion after the events of the last few weeks. Well the certificate is going to my wife. Since we've decided not to give each other Christmas presents this year, it will be a joy to see her use it and she was the one who really wanted it and worked for it. Thanks WDAC and Eastland Alpacas.