"I Found the Golden Ticket!"

Generally, I subscribe to the adage, "When something seems too good to be true, that's probably because it is." I don't want to say I'm not lucky. I consider myself extremely lucky in so many ways, most especially in regard to my five beautiful, healthy, remarkable children. But I don't tend to be lucky in the conventional sense; I don't win things. I don't win raffles, bingo, the lottery (well, I don't actually play the lottery, but I'm pretty sure I wouldn't win even if I did). My children tend to follow suit in this lack of conventional luck. Seth, for example, walks the cake-walk at every carnival, several times even, and has never yet won a cake. He tries and tries, thinking "Maybe this will be the time!" but his number is never called.

I am here today to tell you that our "luck" may be changing. Last evening, as I was doing Core Synergistics, one of the hardest of my P90X workout routines, Seth kept talking about a "Golden Ticket."

"I found the golden ticket" he exclaimed. "I win $50!" He was looking through the latest fundraising packet he got at school. I must say here how much I detest these fundraisers. They tempt kids, showing them all the amazing, expensive prizes they can win if they can only sell 5 million items. Blah! No, I'm not sending my 9-year-old out selling things door-to-door, and I'm not going to burden my friends by asking them to buy stuff they don't need or want. I will buy a few items, but not nearly enough for Seth to win anything significant.

He wouldn't let up. "I found the golden ticket! I win $50!"

I paid little attention. I was dripping in sweat, breathing hard, struggling with all my might to do walking push-ups, steam engine knee lifts, and the infamous "Superman/Banana" series. Gasping for breath, I managed to squeak out, "You did not win $50, Seth." He was crushed. He plopped down on the couch and covered his head with a pillow. Once I recovered from my workout, I tried to explain that the school is not going to just give a kid $50 before he's sold anything. He didn't believe me, but I managed to distract him from the whole subject long enough to eat dinner, and I didn't give it another thought.

Later, when Eli got home from work, Seth apparently showed him the fundraiser packet, along with the golden ticket. Eli came up to my room and said, "I think Seth actually won $50!" What? That couldn't possibly be true. Or could it? So finally (yes, I know I should have done this earlier), I actually looked at the thing myself. Sure enough. It would appear that one child out of the entire school gets a golden ticket in his fundraiser packet, and that ticket is worth $50 cash. And Seth got it. He won!

My skepticism still got the best of me, so I emailed his teacher last night. She replied this morning, confirming that Seth was the lucky child who got the only golden ticket in the entire school and would receive $50 today! He will be one happy boy.

As for me, I'm positively stunned.