I Won Wings!

Since I work with, and spend at least six days a week with students, I often find myself doing things that I probably wouldn't otherwise be doing.  What I did Sunday night/Monday morning is good example of this...

Another good fact for my 11 Questions post would have been that I really like wings (as in chicken wings).  And because of this, and the encouragement demands of a few girls, I found myself camping out at Buffalo Wild Wings to try to win free wings for a year.  The restaurant had its grand opening Monday and it was doing one of those deals where the first 100 people in line when free wings for a year.  So after small group ended at 10:00 Sunday night I headed over with Lauren to meet Ashley and Heather, who already had a tent sent up.  The way the system worked was that every hour on the hour they gave out a sticker, and in the meantime you could do whatever you wanted.  You didn't have to actually stay in a line, as long as you were back at the patio on the hour.  So for the first couple of hours we just hung out.  We had games to play and I had brought some magazines to read. 

Our friend Ethan also joined us, and a little before midnight we decided to order a pizza.  After we all got our 12:00 sticker, two of the girls went to pick up the pizza and I went to the tent to try to get some sleep.  Someone opened the flap of the tent around 12:45 to announce that the pizza was there and as I was crawling out I remember thinking, "This is nuts.  It's almost one in the morning and I'm crawling out of a tent to go eat pizza behind a wings restaurant...Oh well."  Between the hours of 1:00am and 4:00am all of us girls would sleep in the tent.  Lauren had her alarm set so we could get up to get our sticker, and then we would just go back to sleep.

Well around 4:30ish in the morning we were all woken up and none of us quite knew what was going on.  For a minute we thought it was raining but then we figured out that the sprinklers had turned on, and they were right next to our tent!  We just ignored it for a while, but eventually the bottom of the tent started getting wet, because it wasn't on a tarp or anything.  We were going to have to brave the sprinklers, get out, and move the tent.  So picture it, we're all groggy, half awake, and tangled in blankets and sleeping bags.  Ashley was going to go first.  She unzipped the tent and was immediately blasted with water so she starts screaming.  The next several moments involved lots of yelling "hurry, go, go, go" and lots of screams and shrieks as each of us stumbles out of the tent into the water.  We were gathered on the sidewalk, out of the spray of the sprinklers, trying to decide the best plan of action.  Heather covered one of the sprinklers with something and I ran over and threw the empty pizza box on the other one, and Ashley and Lauren picked up the tent and awkwardly ran/scooted out of the way with it.  And we were all doing this barefoot, because none of us had worn our shoes in the tent and we didn't take time to put them on.  We moved the tent to the front corner of the restaurant and then went back to collect our stuff, which included my soaking wet Toms (which are still in my car as I write this, probably stinking it up).  At this point it was 5:00am so we ran to get in line to get our sticker, and when we came back to our site we realized a second set of sprinklers had come on and everything was getting soaked again!  We moved everything even further up the sidewalk and then tried to get some more sleep.  Even though I was basically laying on the sidewalk and was a little damp, I managed to fall asleep until the 6:00am sticker giveaway.

It was much harder to fall asleep after 6:00 because the sun was coming up and I guess they forgot to turn off the music that they played during the sticker giveaway, but I manged to get a little bit more sleep.  This whole thing wasn't going to be over until 10:00, but we had realized that the girls would be able to get a sticker for me even if I wasn't there, so after I got my 7:00 sticker I went home to shower and change and get ready for work.  So I did all that, picked up breakfast at McDonald's for everyone, and was back around 8:45.  At 9:30 they started lining us up around the restaurant.  Everyone who had all 12 stickers was first, and then those with 11 stickers, and so on.  

Heather and Ashley sleeping when I got back.

In line with my stickers!

I was in line a couple people behind the guy in the yellow shirt.

At 10:00 they started letting us in.  A lot of people actually sat down and ate, including Heather and Ashley who were in line ahead of me with 12 stickers.  Lauren and I only had 11 stickers, but we just went in and got some pictures and then headed out.  I had to get to work!

I guess we look ok for sleeping off and on in a tent in the parking lot all night.

Inside the booklet are coupons for a free 6 piece wings - one for every week in the year!

This whole experience was nuts, but I'm glad I did it!  Has anybody else ever done anything crazy to win free food?!?