This just happened to me this week and I’m giving you the straight-up truth. The only reason it took a couple days for me to post about it, is I got sidelined with some other things. But this story needs to be told.

Last weekend I went to a county fair. There was a charity raffle near the main gate. I didn’t stop to look at it going in. Then I ended up running stuff back to the car and I stopped at the charity booth on my 2nd pass.

The charity was for the jail ministry. Bibles for convicts and all that. Counseling and spiritual services. Tell ya the truth, I didn’t really read though the whole spiel, I just pulled out five bucks and prepared to donate it.

The young woman watching the booth asked me if I wanted to buy raffle tickets. I looked at the prizes, being tickets to sports events, and said, “Nah, I’ll just donate.”

“The grand prize is $500,” she pointed out. I still didn’t really care, as I figured the odds of wining were such that I shouldn’t hold my breath. But then a thought occurred to me, and I answered thus:

“Oh, why not. Gimmie the tickets. If I win, I can donate even more.” We both chuckled, and I added that donating half back would still leave me with a nice prize.

I put my entries in the jar with the others. After leaving the booth and getting involved in the fair for 8 hours, I forgot all about the raffle.

Two days later I got a phone call from the prison chaplin. I’d won the $500. And you know what was running through my mind?

I though that my words must have went up pretty high, and now they were going to be put to the test, know what I mean? So I was happy I’d won, but also a little freaked out at the same time. Who has their words turn out this way?

My prize check is in the mail. I will be sending $250 back to that charity. It’s a good cause, and I’m happy to do it.

I’ve heard of speaking things into existence, but wow.

I’m still waiting for the repairs to be done on my ‘67 Chevy Impala. Still. They’ve had the car for a month, and at this rate, I’m cutting my fix-it list short and pulling it out after they finish the current task.

In the laundry list of Stuff That Needed Fixing, the rear end of the Impala was too low due to worn-out springs and shocks. Not a surprise, since I used this car as a moving van a few years ago. I had to wait for the parts, as finding springs for a car like this isn’t easy these days. I believe the current set of springs are from a tractor, come to think of it. Anyway, I need these huge-ass springs to keep the huge ass of my car up.

When the mechanic was explaining all this, I told him to go ahead and put the rear of the car a bit higher up, and give it more of the hot-rod stance. But while looking at the car tonight ( which is parked outside of the garage) I kinda liked the straight-line look it has. I might tell them just to keep the overall stance high and not worry about the raised rear.

I’m afraid though, that if I change the specs too much, I’ll end up with something like this:

At this point I just want the car back. Even if I need a ladder to get into the thing.

I was looking at a bar website to see if my favorite local band was playing there soon. It’s a biker-friendly bar, so they had links to other biker-friendly bars, and ya know what happens when you keep following links, right? I ended up on a tattoo website. I’m used to seeing mean-looking tattoos (I’ve been in some rough dives) but this one takes the cake. Or rather, the ice cream:

Wonder if this guy hangs out at Dairy Queen. I might get this photo made into a fridge magnet, it’d probably keep everybody out of the ice cream. Beware the Bad Humor man!