The Write Stuff - Part I

The lovely Mrs. G. and I are finalists in an essay contest. I’ve won essay contests before, but it’s been almost three years since my last win, so I’m due. Right?

Anyway, we’re one of 5 finalist couples in Select Comfort’s search for “America’s Sleepiest Couple”. Whazzat??? Well, last June when we were in Minneapolis for our combined 40th birthdays I saw a newspaper story about an essay contest where in 150 words or less you could write about why you & your spouse/domestic partner/live-in/whomever are the sleepiest couple in the United States.

So what exactly do you get for being officially certified as the sleepiest people in all the land? Well, besides ridiculed by all of your co-workers for not being fully awake (I can hear the jokes now – “Yeah, that explains a lot”, or “Hey Tommy, do you need a little nap before the meeting?”), you’ll earn some really cool prizes. Like a brand new Select Comfort bed, blankets, a comforter, pillows, aromatherapy machine, even a white noise simulator to turn those passing sirens into the sounds of crashing waves.

And, if that ain’t enough, oh, yeah. You also win a – get this – three day/two night trip to New York City, PLUS a six day/five night trip to a fancy Raddison resort on the beach in Aruba. Total estimated value of all prizes? That’d be a cool $9,000 smackers, pally! Whoo-hoo! Now there’s a prize worth winning.

Of course, you also get the honorary title of the most sleep deprived humans around. Hey, for a free bed, free trip to the Big Apple, and 5 nights of laying around on the beach in Aruba, I’d be just about anything they asked. Well, almost anything. (A fellow has to have his dignity intact sometimes, you know.)

So we sat down, wrote a delightfully funny-yet-poignant entry or at least we thought so), and then sent it in. Then we waited. And yes, Tom Petty was right: the waiting IS indeed the hardest part.

Sure enough, Mrs. G. got a phone call on August 18 to let her know that she and I are one of the 7 finalist couples! Hooray! We dashed to their Web site, where they’d posted all of the entries, then made our own self-glorified predictions of which entry we thought was best. Was there any sort of bias in choosing our favorite? Well, let’s put it this way: it was sort of like asking a new mother which baby in the maternity ward is the cutest. There’s really no need to ask.

So now we were down to one in seven odds – not bad. But the rules said that there would only be 5 semi-finalists. How come they said there would now be 7? Oh, well – I can’t help that. They told Mrs. G. that judging would take place on or around Aug 31, so we crossed our fingers, put on the Tom Petty CD again, and waited some more.

The official rules said that the winner would be notified “on or about September 9,” so we waited for last Friday to come. Well, as planned, Friday showed up. And no call. But that’s okay – sometimes these things take time. And maybe they’re notifying the winner by mail, right? Hey, it’s possible. So we checked the mail Friday. Nothing.

Well, by this point I was starting to get a little dejected – I’m not exactly what you’d call a “good sport” when it comes to losing things. I don’t like it, and I never have. I won’t throw a fit or cry “foul”, but I will be pissy for at least a day about it.

So let the pissiness begin – or so I thought. For last night around 9:15 the phone rings, and Mrs. G. picks it up. Sure enough, it’s the contest coordinator. At first we were ready to do the Happy Dance – but alas, she tells us that we’ll need to wait a little longer. But the good news is we’re now officially one of the 5 finalists, instead of 7. (Two people got bumped somewhere along the line.) Congrats, congrats, hooray, hooray.

Then they pop this on us: To help us pick a winner, we’re going to e-mail another question to answer – yes, more essay to write. Oh, and we need it back within 48 hours so we can make a decision. Oooookay. So Mrs. And I do our Sort-Of-Happy-Dance anyway, since at least we know we’re still in this thing, then we start getting ready to write an essay for their next question.

Originally the question was “Describe why you’re the sleepiest couple, and tell us about the worst night you had sleeping”. Now, the new one was “How a Better Nights Sleep Will Change Our Lives”. So I got to work, putting together some notes, brainstorming with my lovely bride, and trying to figure out what to write – and in a hurry, no less.

I slept about an hour last night, as my mind was too busy racing, thinking of what to write to waste time on foolish things like sleeping. (Hey, maybe that should’ve been my essay theme!) But by the time the alarm went off at 5:20 this morning, I knew what I wanted to say, so I started writing.

Then we got the e-mail. Keep it to 50 words or less, please.

So most of my thoughts for Essay #2 went right out the window, and I came up with 3 sentences and 48 words that will hopefully do the trick. We e-mailed our new essay back to the coordinator, along with a digital photo of us from our cruise last January, and now we’re back to the waiting game again.

I swear, Tom Petty is gonna get rich off royalties from me, isn’t he?

Anyway, the decision is in the hands of fate and the contests judges now. Are we truly America’s sleepiest couple? Or are we just a couple of runners-up, destined to sleep on our crappy old mattress for all eternity?

I guess we’ll find out shortly. I promise to post the results, either way.

In the meantime, please feel free to join us in crossing fingers, rubbing lucky rabbit’s feet, and avoiding stepping on any cracks or walking underneath ladders for the next few days. We could use all the luck we can get.