I never win anything. I try, but I never win.

“Am I caller number 9?” I yell frantically into the phone.
“Yes, you are!” the DJ replies.
“Yeah, baby” I shout my best Austin Power’s impersonation, not caring that that movie is sooooo 15 years ago.
“Unfortunately, we are taking caller number 10 today,” Tadpole Green, the Froggy 104 DJ states, crushing my spirit.
“What?” I ask sternly.
“Sorry,” he replies.
“You’ve taken caller number 9 for the last 20 years, and today, today you change?” I am on the verge of tears.
“Yeah, sorry,” he repeats.
“Let me speak to your manager!” I demand.
“This order came directly from the top.”
“The top?” I ask.
“Barack Obama,” Tadpole replies.
To which I throw the phone to the ground, stretch my arms to the sky and shout, “Damn you, Barack Obama!”

I mean, it’s always Obama’s fault, isn’t it? 

So, since I rarely win things, you can imagine how ecstatic I was when Dude from Dude of the House dropped the knowledge on me that I’d won an IHoP gift card worth 50 bones. Fifty bones, people. That’s like 3 million pancakes worth on All You Can Eat Pancake Day.

Who is Dude? When I think of Dude, I picture Jeff Bridges, White Russian in one hand and a urine stained rug beneath his feet. I know Dude from Dude of the House is in fact NOT Jeff Bridges, but this dude still abides. He abides.

If you’ve never seen The Big Lebowski, then that last paragraph is going to confuse the crap out of you.

So, Dude isn’t Jeff Bridges, but he is an awesome blogger. He did a blog post about his family outing at the IHoP. Long story short, I commented on his post, and before I knew it, he was congratulating me and stuffs. A few days later, I had an IHoP gift card worth 50 bones in my mailbox. The Dude abides.

An IHoP gift card is golden around here. We love flipping pancakes. Not actually flipping them, but that was meant as a nice version of an expletive. 

I’ve been known to stand around the kitchen, trying decide the menu for the evening- roasted leg of lamb or breakfast? Breakfast for supper always wins. I love throwing the ass end of a pig in the skillet, cracking open a dozen eggs, toasting a loaf of bread and sitting at the dining table, discussing the day’s events. Breakfast flipping rocks.

Today was a huge day in the Whoa! Susannah household. My smart baby girl, age 6, took her first real test at school. She was so nervous about it. We prayed together, and she went to school with the confidence that she would ace that sucker. You can imagine my joy when she brought this home.

Celebration worthy, correct?

A few hours later, I received word that my winning short story was in this month’s edition of Southern Writers Magazine. Now, I know I just told you that I never win anything. Besides the IHoP gift cards, this really is the only other thing that I’ve EVER won.

Celebration worthy, right?

Look, I even got a bio and shiz.

So, we headed down to the IHoP to celebrate. Since I haven’t done any work that requires a W2 in seven years, I haven’t actually paid for a meal in that amount of time. My husband was freaking overjoyed that the bill was on me.

I have to admit that our IHoP is rather disgusting. Now, I love my pancakes. I love my sausage. I love my breakfast for dinner. And I love free food. I actually love IHoP’s food, but I can rarely look around the establishment without hurling at the other patrons.

There was a guy in the corner shouting, angrily, in Arabic. I heard the word, “Libya” twice. I don’t know why in hell he was having a heated conversation about Libya in a Tennessee International House of Pancakes, but my heart skipped three beats.

Our food arrived. The tikes had baby cakes, the hubs had an omelet the size of the left intestine. I won’t tell you what I ordered, because a lady shouldn’t eat like that. Let me just say, I felt like I should have been wearing a flannel shirt and participating in a log rolling contest. My meal was manly-er than hell.

I didn’t take a picture of my food, but I was NOT eating this.

As I enjoyed the deliciousness of breakfast for dinner, a chick whipped out her boob and started breastfeeding. A lady coughed for 8 straight minutes. I smelled Band-Aids. And a waitress kept chewing on her lip ring.

The food was great, but I can’t eat around filth. I just can’t do it. That lady’s lung butter totally overrides the deliciousness of some buttery hotcakes. So, we ate as quickly as we could and skedaddled.

But, all in all, it was a wonderful day. I want to thank God for giving my child the confidence and smarts to totally ace her first test. I want to thank Southern Writer’s Magazine for choosing my little old story to be in their publication. And I want to thank Dude of the House for the IHoP cards and giving me a blog topic! Dude, you abide!

On a side note- I’m on chapter 20 of my novel. I’ve become one with these characters, thinking about them as I walk down the aisles at Wal-Mart, wondering what kind of crap they’d buy. I hope to have it completed in a couple of weeks. It’s consuming all of my thoughts and my time. Once that sucker is mailed off to every publisher in a tri-country radius, I will be back to blogging! I miss my blogging buddies!

Until then, keep Randy Travis in your thoughts.

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