Calling in to the radio

Whenever I'm listening to the radio and I hear the "touchtones" to be caller 14 (or whatever), I get SO excited and scramble for my phone. (Even if I'm driving... unless it's a snowstorm.) I love calling in to try and win stuff, pretty much regardless of what it is.

So far in my life, I've won a gift card to Texas Roadhouse and a pair of tickets to Great America. Don't get me wrong, it's awesome to win things. It makes you feel lucky and puts a smile on your face. Everybody likes free stuff. But my favorite part of calling in to the radio is the short pause after hitting Call. You wonder, "Am I going to hear a busy signal or an actual ring??" It's the same feeling I get when I hold a wrapped present that's just for me -- my expectations soar. Sometimes I just hold the present for a little while and savor the moment.

Anyway, that's why I didn't call this post "Winning things from the radio," because that's obviously awesome. Calling in is one of my favorite things... winning something is just a sweet bonus that happens one out of 100 times. I don't know what that makes me. An optimist, I suppose. But we already knew that. :)

Cleaning the Lint Trap

This is an odd one. I don't know what it is about cleaning the lint trap in the dryer, but it gives me a sense of great satisfaction *every* time I do it. (Which, now that I have a baby, is quite a lot.) With one circular swoop of my hand, I grab all of the fuzz that's come off our clothes (that's what ends up in your lint trap, right?) and throw it in the little garbage can positioned next to the dryer. It takes 2 seconds, but afterward, I always feel a tiny bit triumphant. Strange, right?

It might be because when my parents got married in 1978, as they tell us, they got a new dryer. But they couldn't find the lint trap -- it wasn't in a place that either of them had seen a lint trap before -- so they assumed it didn't have one (???). Fast-forward a few years, and my uncle stayed at their place. He did some of his laundry, and he found the elusive lint trap. It was like 6 inches thick with lint. Needless to say, he showed them where it was, so they ended up not setting their house on fire, which I can't believe didn't happen sometime in the years before he arrived. I imagine it was a close call.

Anyway, maybe it makes me feel like I'm somehow avoiding that fate (I have a monster fear of fire). Or that it's just a small task I can cross off my to-do list (another thing that makes me happy). But whatever the reason, that's that.