So tonight (and my Buddha, it's December 1 already???) my alma mater is playing for the conference championship, and I hope to have enough time and energy to drive from my workplace to the downtown bar where we usually watch the game.
Since this is a big game, my initial thought (and something I still could do) is to do this 50/50 raffle, whose proceeds shore up my alumni club's scholarship fund. Haven't done it in a while; did it the first three times, then in the fourth game I kind of chickened out. I tried bringing it back for our last game, two weeks ago. There were only, like, five other people then, and I usually shelve the idea for the raffle when there are too few people available to play, but since it was against our rival, and since I hadn't done it in a while, and since the people there were regulars who have played the raffle before, I thought we could do a small one.
"So," I said, "Who wants to raffle?" Crickets. And then one of the guys blurts out, "I'm out!" And that, my friends, was that, even though another of my friends did decide to donate a couple bucks.
We're all friends, so I can't take something like that personally. Still, the rejection was, for lack of a better word, embarrassing. And it affirmed my natural trepidation to hit these guys up for money. I mean, if the shoe were on the other foot, I don't know if I would like to be shaken down for cash, even if it is for a good cause. Now, the shoe isn't on the other foot, so I still have a job to do and I still need to raise money. But doing it tonight? There's a 90% chance I won't. And two weeks ago was ample reason why not.
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