Paying it forward. Or more sideways, I suppose....

[captainsblog]

A brief comment-exchange with a Friend here the other day reminded me of something I've been meaning to do. And like the infamous kids in the Shake'n'Bake ad, yew kin HEP!

For many years, our mailbox has been lightened-up on a regular basis by a monthly humor newspaper called the Funny Times. It's not a mainstream publication by any means, though it has many fairly-famous authors and cartoonists who contribute to it. Rather, it's just Ray and Sue from Cleveland, who put it out every month as a labor of love.  It just showed up one month in our mailbox- no gift card or clue as to from who. For years we resubscribed, sometimes even giving extras as gifts to friends and even people we didn't know (they had an option for that). At least once when we let the subscription lapse, it renewed itself by magic for a year. This summer, just as Eleanor's job woes hit their nadir, I made the tough choice to let it go for good.

Fat chance, that. This month's much-needed issue arrived, gratis, in last week's mail, and with it an offer: renew ourselves, and they'll give a free gift of a year's subscription to anyone we choose. Things have been better lately, enough so that I'd pretty much decided to renew anyway, but now I've got this random act of kindness on my hands with no obvious choice about what to do with it.

Until now.

----

Here's the deal. Sometime between now and 12:01 a.m. EST on Wednesday, November 5th, do something nice for somebody. I don't care what it is; I don't care if you even tell me what it is. Just leave a comment on this entry saying as much or as little as you care to. "I held a door for someone with an armload of packages." "I cured a loathsome disease." Hell, I'll take "I voted," or even no specificity at all.

Wednesday morning, I will run this random integer generator. It will return one number between 1 and n where n equals the number of eligible comments. That's it. Whoever is so drawn gets the year's subbie.

Being a lawyer in my spare time, there are, of course,

Rules.

1. You must be a resident of, or willing to designate a mailing address in, the United States of America. Sorry, but I can't subject Ray and Sue to the vagaries of international postage.

2. You must be willing to provide a snail address to me, that you agree that I may in turn provide to the publisher, if I don't already have it. Do not do that in your comment, but be ready to email it to me if you win.

3. Funny Times content leans to the PG-13 edge of the content scale, and somewhere between dark blue and indigo on the political spectrum. That said, they made just as much fun of Clinton in his eight years as they've done of Bush in the past eight. If this offends, let someone else win.

4. If the "winner" fails to qualify, Ray reruns the generator thingie with n now equaling the original n minus one, choosing a new winner, said process repeating until someone is gotten. When n becomes equal to zero, Ray gives up and lets his kid give it away.

5. You do not have to be an LJ member, or friend of this page, to participate, as long as I can figure out who you are, and as long as you are a human being and not some kind of spambot. Also, only one entry per actual human being will be counted, no matter how many (or whether any) LJ names you have or comments you make.

6. What, you think there'd be a Rule 6?


Even if you don't care to enter or win, find a random second or two of kindness today or tomorrow. Lord knows we could all use some, no matter how this turns out.

Comments

[baseballchica03.livejournal.com]

I spent half an hour chatting with a lonely 74 year old man who was out for a walk in his trailer park. He told me all about how he was in the service, and his brother's a college professor who went to Michigan but he never had the brains for schooling. Worked hard for a long time but has given up on voting because nobody ever does anything to help people like him - for fuck's sake, the man served our country and worked in a union job his whole life and now lives in a trailer park in Lockport. Every time the phone rings, he thinks it's his 92-year-old mother's 'round the clock nurse to tell him that the inevitable has happened. But usually it's just a pre-recorded message from Maziarz telling him to get out and vote.

What the hell is wrong with this country?

Shine up my halo, Ray!

[angledge.livejournal.com]

Today I bought a newspaper & a magazine for the EXTREMELY bored security guard at the front entrance of the FEMA office.

Re: Shine up my halo, Ray!

[captainsblog.livejournal.com]

You're one of the people here who virtually got a sponsor's exemption from any actual proof of a good deed on account of the lifetime-achievement aspect of what you do for a living every day.

[revmary.livejournal.com]

When I walked to the Post Office, I saw our two trustees(you're a UMC, you know what those are). They were varnishing/sealing the handicapped ramp. Working very hard. So, I made them lunch. Homemade Soup and a sandwich. The one trustee is age 77. he was getting tired and needed a little break. BTW.

Re: Shine up my halo, Ray!

[angledge.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

[captainsblog.livejournal.com]

We occupy the oldest continuously-used house of worship in this entire county, retrofitted and rearranged dozens of times, but still maintaining portions getting close to the end of their second century. Our trustees are not only the salt of the earth, but the pepper, paprika and (at pledge drive time) sugar that hold the whole place together.

[khuckie.livejournal.com]

I dug a piece of rosemary out of a lady's tonsils today. It was really bothering her and the relief was instant. It was sorta gross, but so fulfilling at the same time.