A dog agility tale of karma, the supernatural and winningness.

I was at a dog show all weekend. I will give you an utterly fascinating, detailed book report about this later. I will tell you this right now, spoiler alert. Over the weekend, neither Otterpop or Gustavo won a single class.

We all did fine. As in, "Hey, how you doin' ?"

Answer, "Fine."

It's a mediocre part of speech. I believe an adjective. I would rather think of myself as a verb. Fine makes me yawn. See my teeth? We were running pretty good. Having a good time. Just not good enough to be the best.

At dog shows around here, we have raffles at the end of the day. You work in some classes, you get some little tickets and you put them in a drawing for some stuff you like. Dog toys, a leash, water bowls, wine, barbeque tongs, coupons to be cashed in for entries at future trials. Always one big ticket item, like a nice agility jump. The more classes you work in, the more tickets you get for the chance to win a prize.

I always work a lot. The way this show was scheduled and since I didn't enter lots of classes, I had plenty of time to work and gathered up a big pocketful of tickets. RARELY do I win a thing.* I always put my tickets in for the entry coupons or the jump, if I like the color. I always go to the raffle table at the end of the day and think how nice it would be to be a winner and take home a something or other. It may have come from Walmart or have been regifted from somebody's closet, but it's nice to feel like a winner a little bit.

I sure did like the nice agility jump this time. Orange with gold sparkle poles. It spoke to me. In a foreign tongue of fanciness. Who else has a jump like that? I put in nearly every ticket into the drawing for the jump. Loads of them. Sprinkled a couple tickets in for the coupons and some dog toys, but mostly stuffed them in the bag for my orange sparkle jump.

Yes. MY orange sparkle jump. I named it that. It sure was nice. I have pretty rag tag agility equipment. This baby was a shining star amongst jumps.

At the end of the day, I wandered over to the raffle before heading home. It had been a long day. My drive was going to be a long drive. Someone was pulling out the tickets and asked me if I'd help her. So we were doing it together, and yo and behold, I pulled out my name for some little dog toys shaped like pumpkins. Righteous! I never win.* Total supernatural voodoo at work. What were the odds?

We kept moving through the items, saving the jump for last. One of my friends won an enormous stuffed hedgehog. Someone else won a magenta polyester blanket. Excellent choices.

Finally I reached in and pulled out the ticket for the jump. The bag was bountiful of overflowing ticket fullness. Apparently the orange jump spoke to many competitors over the weekend.

I shuffled around, mixing them up with my hand. I knew I had a bunch of tickets in there, but I knew I'd never win it. What were the odds? I was going home with squeaky pumpkins with googly eyes made in China that would last approximately 20 minutes at my house before decimation and dissection. Somewhat dissapointing compared to my orange sparkly jump, but excellent nonetheless for a dedicated loser.

Except, the winner I pulled out was, specifically, me. Creepy supernatural forces at work, or did I fix this? I wasn't sure. I am not good at fixing hardly anything, so how I somehow fixed the drawing to pull out my own name twice, beyond me. I had been feeling pretty mediocre all weekend, and now I am winning prizes twice. It's not the sixty billion mega lottery, but when you sit around leaping out of a chair every 54 seconds fluffing chute fabric all weekend, any kind of prize feels like a big deal. Well, except maybe for giant hedgehogs.

I expressed amazement, something like, "DUUUUUUUUDE!" but then instantly it turned to dismay. That isn't right to pick out your own name for the big ticket luxury item at an agility raffle. This is like winning a Caribbean cruise on a lesser cruise line not including beverages, tax and gratuity for normal people. I was going to have to do another draw. Hello and goodbye, orange sparkle jump.

The trial chair walked by. I think she had not been having a good weekend. I told her what just happened and she sputtered something about not fair and threw her hands up and stalked off. "Why did you do the drawing if your tickets were in there?" Cuz I was just trying to help out. I've tried to win one of these things for years. Years. Thought I had a rat's chance in the cathouse of winning. I agreed with her sentiment though. I wasn't going to keep it though, I knew that wasn't right.

One of my friends was there, and it was decided she would do another draw. I gathered up my pumpkins. They had little embroidered smiles that suggested they had no idea what was going to happen to them as soon as my dogs got to them. I give my orange sparkle jump a sad eyed parting glance. Easy come, easy go.

She pulls out another name, and holds it up.

"It's you."

I think she is joking.

"It's you."

There's my name on the ticket. Clear as day. The orange sparkle jump was mine, fair and square, no fix, no hitch, mine to take home for my dogs to jump.

I think you get the gist of this story. Shall we call it a fable? Because I think it has a moral. Such as, wouldn't it be cool to have a whole set of jumps in really excellent colors like forest camo and stump faux bois and black and white toile?

Or also, perhaps, I try to do the right thing. Help out, don't talk smack, be good to others and keep my head out of my ass. Mostly it doesn't pay off to anybody except me. I screw up sometimes. I am extremely imperfect. Don't matter. You win some, you lose some. Some things based on skill, some things based on luck. Some things maybe both, somewhere in the middle. This time, weird, creepy, and excellent all at once. Go figure.

*Strangely, last weekend I won a coupon for entries at an upcoming trial. Just to make things spookier.