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Old August 21st 04, 06:09 AM
Shiver Me Timbers
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Okay folks..... I'll go first.

Many years ago when I owned a camera store in a northern community, the
local paper had approached the mall I was in with the idea of doing a
ping pong ball drop from a helicopter as part of the mall's anniversary
celebrations.

A buddy of mine who worked for this newspaper had come up with the idea
and found a source of cheap ping pong balls, and his wife had agreed to
dye these balls in various colours. The different colours represented
various rates of discounts in the mall stores.

I can remember going over to visit them one nite and there she was
sitting on her living room floor with a couple of those old
washerwomen's galvanized tubs full of dye and ping pong balls.

There were balls everywhere.

Now her real reward for doing all this work, was that on the appointed
day she got to ride in the helicopter, and she got to drop the balls.

About ten thousand of them.

On the appointed day me and my bud went up on the roof of this mall and
enjoyed coffee and donuts as we watched thousands of people show up for
this event and mill about the parking lot.

It was quite the sight and it got better when the helicopter showed up
and began a slow circular movement about a hundred feet above the
crowd.

You can imagine what happened when my friend's wife started dropping
thousands of ping pong balls out of the helicopter a garbage bag full
at a time and the downwash from the rotor hurled them to the ground.

They bounced everywhere, from one end of the lot to the other, with a
mass of humanity like a school of fish running after them.

Now one of those balls was marked in a special way and represented a
fifty percent discount at any store in the mall.

It was good on any item in any store and conceivable was worth a lot of
money.

A lady found the ball and took it into the large department store that
anchored this mall and bought a pair of panty hose for a couple of
dollars and presented the ball for her discount.

The manager was called and he explained that she could use the ball or
give it to some relative, friend or whatever, and the ball could be
used to get fifty percent off of any large ticket item in the store.

She said nope.

She was going to a party that nite and wanted her legs to look good so
she needed a new pair of pantyhose and insisted in cashing in the ball
on a three dollar purchase.

Amazing.... Eh.