And the winner is...

TGIF.

I'm about 7 hours from "Miller time." (The AGD doesn't condone drinking to make your problems go away; that's my idea, not their's.)

You know I like to tell you about the funny things that happen at home. David, my 13month old, is officially walking. Really, it's more like wobbling... it is so cute. But my wife was looking at David walking and asked if I thought one of his legs was longer than the other. I about died laughing. I am laughing while I am writing this because I am thinking about the way he walks and thinking about how crazy parents can get.

If you are not a parent yet you don't know this, but parents worry. They worry about everything from the first day the kid is born to when they have children and then they worry about the grandkid. They worry if they are blind, or deaf or have a learning disability. Parents know it isn't healthy but they do it all the time anyway.

"Honey, we have been to the pediatrician 15 times this year. You don't think 'one leg is longer than the other' might be something she would let us know about?"

I started watching Modern Family this week. I have heard so many things about this show that I DVR'd it. Well, I loved it. I laughed at one thing so hard the milk I was drinking came out of my nose. My wife, who was hell-bent against not watching it, loved it as well. I recommend it.

Topic de jour...

The Chamber of Commerce did this "The Best of Apopka" thing. (Apopka is the nice little town I work in.) It was announced that every category of service was up for the Best of:
best mechanic, best restaurant, best hair salon, etc. Of course, dentist was a category.

So I wanted to win. I have a few reasons for wanting to one. Partially because I want people to like me and to validate all my efforts. But also, I didn't want any other dentist to get more recognition (it is all about marketing and PR). I think there are about 11 or 12 dentists in Apopka.

The voting went on for a couple of months. I did some things to help myself out. I had my whole staff vote (10 votes!) and I put a flyer at my front desk letting people know that they still had time to vote. I didn't tell them who to vote for; I encouraged them to vote for their favorite dentist.

The voting ended two weeks ago, and we got a call from the local paper saying that we were in the top three. They were not allowed to tell us if we won or not, but they wanted to know if we would like to put an ad in a special section of all the top three winners. In all, I received three calls from the paper and 3 faxes wanting me to put an ad in the special section.

I took one of the calls. I asked if I was going know if I won before the paper came out. They said I would not, and I told them that I didn't want to run an ad if I didn't win 1st place. I can see it now: "Thank you for voting me third best dentist in Apopka.

So how do you find out if you won? Well, funny you should ask. They are having an awards dinner at the local town hall. For $20 a head, you come and have a spaghetti buffet and find out what place you came in.

There were about 40 categories, and three people from each category were invited, but there were only 200 spots. I know that may seem like a lot, but let's say "Best Bank" is a category. Each bank might bring 5 people.

I wondered if I should go to this dinner. My thought was that if I win and don't show for the dinner, I look like an unappreciative ____. But if I go and don't win, I look like all the other second and third place people.

I was confident and decided to go. On the day of the dinner I called the Chamber to ask for the dress code and they told me that I haven't RSVPed. Here is the thing: I usually tell my people, "I want to go to this dinner, can you take care of it for me?" And it happens.

Now my wife wanted to go with me, so she asked the person in charge to email her the information. This must have short-circuited our finely-tuned machine here, because it became a lot of, "I thought she was going to RSVP," and "Why would I RSVP? I just asked for the information?" (I'm not blaming anyone.)

I asked the woman at the chamber what we could do. She said that there are always available seats so just come a little late and we will find you two seats. I thought this was kind of a weird way of doing it, but I was game. We would get all dressed up and if we couldn't find a seat, my wife and I would go out for a nice dinner.

We showed up at the local VFW and it was a madhouse. We couldn't find a seat; half of the people weren't seated because they were in line for food. We told them we would wait. So she said that would be $40, cash or check. Hmm, now we have a problem. Between the two of us, we only had $6 on us and no check book.

She looked at us like, "You have got to be kidding." I looked at her like, "You have to be kidding. I have never been to a dinner where they wouldn't bill my office."

The night was not going well. We went to the bar, used all of our $6 to buy two beers, and stood there. We had been there about 35 minutes when I said to my wife, "You ready?" And she replied, "I thought you would never ask." We were out of there in about 30 seconds. We went to a quaint little place (that was not the VFW) and had a nice dinner.

I want to get involved in the community but I felt like this was kind of like a Hallmark holiday. It seems like they have this "Best of" just to sell ads for the newspaper and to sell tickets to the dinner. There are just 40 people that are really happy (oh, and the newspaper people are happy too). The others are ticked because they didn't win and and others are ticked because they bought a table for 6 at the dinner and a half page ad and won third place.

The voting stopped about 3 weeks ago, the dinner was Wednesday, and I still don't know if I won. I guess it is just as well, as I have a really bad attitude about the whole thing anyway.

The paper comes out on Fridays and one came in the mail today. I went to it to see if they have the winners. Nope. This weeks paper has all the ads and NEXT week is when they will reveal the winners. I guess I should have stayed at the dinner.

Well, we are off to the pediatrician to have David's legs measured. Just kidding. I have a full plate. I'm hoping there will be some funny stuff so I can bring it back here for you on Monday.

Have a great Friday and weekend.

john