Jenny's Got A Gun (Or the Cash Value Thereof)

Well, I did it! I booked my flight and reserved my rental car. I'm really going!

You may ask how I was able to accomplish this in one fell swoop (or even one swell foop), especially considering the recent holidays and my shamefully small savings account. Well, it's all possible because of two things: the tonsils that ate Cincinnati and ... well, a gun.

I'd bought some of those raffle tickets where you win if one of your ticket numbers matches the Pennsylvania Lottery numbers within a given month. Frankly, such things are tantamount to donations for me, since I never, ever win anything. Anyway, I only bothered to check the numbers in the first week of January. And it certainly wasn't a fevered, excited checking. It was more like a ho-hum-I've-already-checked-my-usual-sites-and-nothing's-shaking kind of internet check. Imagine my surprise when the nightly drawing number for December 17 matched my ticket! My prize? A rifle, and quite a nice one from what I gather. I did, however, have the option to receive my award in the form of cash.

Oddly enough, the cash value of the rifle was within ten dollars of the cost of a round-trip plane ticket from Avoca, Pennsylvania to Minneapolis.

So, of course, I opted for the gun.

Okay. I kid. I chose the cash prize, deposited it pronto into my checking account, obsessively checked the account until it cleared, and reserved my flight the moment that it did.

And the tonsils? What a pleasure they were. I apparently contracted Dengue fever (or a reasonable facsimile) in the middle of December. By December 19th or so, I was running a high fever, had glands so swollen that my hearing was shot, and my immediate environs had begun to look, to me at least, like the nifty psychedelic backdrop from a Grateful Dead show. Good times. I took a day off to rest up, but the illness only seemed to get progressively worse.

Somehow, in a fever-induced haze, I decided that the only sensible thing to do was get out there and get my Christmas shopping done. I figured that I'd either be comatose or dead by the big day, so I might as well leave my loved ones with some carefully-chosen trinkets to remember me by. Unfortunately, The Clapper was hard to come by this year, so everybody got lesser mementos. But get that shopping done, I did.

The upside of my infirmity was that I had finished my elven duties before I got my Christmas bonus at work. To be honest, I'd forgotten all about the bounty of Christmas bonuses, so ill was I. The result was that I was able to stash the money in my checking account, to spend as selfishly as I pleased.

Some of that money went to buy a to-die-for pair of heeled suede boots. And some of it paid for my car rental.

So, friends, the wheels are in motion. I'm really, really doing this! I mean, I knew I was, but now it's actually happening. I think I may spend this week (and the remainder of my bonus plus other residual cash in my checking account) on hotel reservations. As crazy as it sounds, I think I may have this trip bought and paid for by Valentine's Day. Then I'll concentrate on stashing spending money in my checking account.

A gun and a set of swollen glands. Huh. Who knew?

Days until trip: 171
Amount Saved: $335.00