Good luck charms

Those are my adorable nieces. Well, the girl in the middle isn't my niece, but she's adorable too. This picture was taken last Saturday at my brother's house. My sister-in-law entered a contest and won a Chick-fil-A party for 50 people, complete with their trademark cow and its passive-agressive signage. There's nothing I like more than free chicken delivered by giant advertising mascots, so I was bummed that I couldn't be there (I've been having car troubles and my brother lives about two hours away).

This impressive win was nothing new for my sister-in-law. She's always entering contests, and frequently winning them. Once I got a DVD in the mail with no explanation (I think it was the non-extended version of The Two Towers). A couple of months later I finally learned that she had entered a contest several times and entered different names and addresses because she kept winning.

Her biggest prize: a week-long trip for the whole family to the Cayman Islands, won from Nickelodeon. People do actually win those contests.

My mom is no slouch when it comes to contest victories either. She's won $100 from various radio stations about a half-dozen times in the last two years. I remember a time when I was a kid when she won radio cash and used it on this. It was awesome.

Mom also kicks butt on those arcade claw games. She seriously grabs a stuffed animal at least once out of every three times she plays, and then has cool stuff to give to those cuties above and her other grandkids. She's no Buster Bluth, but she's very impressive.

I'm not without my share of prize-winning performances, either. A few years ago I won $1000 in a radio contest, much of which I spent on my increasingly-obsolete laptop. As an intern in New York in '03, I was the right caller for tickets to a Dan Akroyd-Jim Belushi concert at the China Club (sidenote: Blogger's spellchecker marks Akroyd as a typo but recognizes Belushi).

Also, as a kid, I won tickets to a sneak preview of The Little Mermaid thanks to my standout work in an Albertson's coloring contest. However, I pretended to be sick so I could stay home from the movie and watch WWF Superstars of Wrestling because there was going to be a test of strength between Ultimate Warrior and Dino Bravo, and back then something of that significance only happened on Superstars about three times a year. I clearly made the right decision.

So yeah...us Hofmanns are pretty lucky. Next time you have a big test or job interview or something coming up, feel free to come over and rub my belly. If that still doesn't help, my mom will probably have a plush toy of some kind to console you with.