Target Market

There are about three ways to raise money for your group in Valley County. The Bandaides have perfected bingo, so that’s out for everybody else. That leaves some combination of dinner tickets, a carnival, a sportsman’s bash and raffle, or a completely random event like betting on where a cow relieves itself in a field.

The problem is that once you get outside Stoneford, the communities get smaller, and you start trading beef-and-dumpling tickets for Trail’s End popcorn. This makes both groups feel pretty good, but ultimately doesn’t raise much money. I’m not sure I would even call it fundraising, per se. It’s more about the various booster groups taking turns holding the same pile of money.

The real difficulty comes when two groups need to hold it on the same Saturday. Such was the case at the last Bingomania. We were competing with the Patty Plop, hosted by the Vicarsville Volunteer Fire Department.

Vicarsville is a small farming community east of Stoneford. It has two churches, a volunteer fire department, and a store that has changed owners six times without anybody changing what they call it. No Vicars live in Vicarsville anymore, which doesn’t seem to trouble anybody. Most of the people who live there aren’t entirely sure who the Vicars were in the first place.

The fire department settled on the Patty Plop for several reasons. First, they don’t have room for a carnival. Second, a community can only eat so many oyster fritters. Third, the local VFWs have cornered the market on beef and dumplings to the point that you can’t even find dumpling mix during fundraising season.

They did, however, have access to a cow.

The principle is straightforward. You buy a ticket corresponding to a square on a grid laid out in the fire company’s backyard. They turn a cow loose inside the fence, and everybody waits for her to select a winner. The cow does not know she is selecting a winner. This is probably best, given the amount of money involved.

If she relieves herself on your square, you win five thousand dollars. An official Poop Sheriff and another official called the Turd Bird settle any questions about where, precisely, she has relieved herself. If the result falls across more than one square, they weigh the portions.

I don’t know how those positions are filled. Presumably, you miss a meeting.

Of course, you can’t charge people fifty dollars just to stand around waiting for a cow, particularly in Vicarsville, where several of them could do that at home. So there’s food, a cash bar, live music, raffles, fifty-fifties, and cash prizes every fifteen minutes. The cow is the headliner, but they’ve arranged things so the evening can proceed without her cooperation.

By any reasonable measure, it is a worthy cause.

Unfortunately, it was competing with ours.

It was okay, though. We have loyal customers, and we hold Bingomania at the arena right in the heart of Stoneford so everybody can get to us easily. Sure, this involves logistics, trailers, counting parties to count out the bingo cards, forklifts, and early Saturday mornings that turn into very late Saturday nights. But we go where the people are.

For the first time in a long time, we hadn’t sold out. We had the numbers to hold the event. It was just going to be a quieter evening.

Again, it was fine. We would make it work.

We also had another advantage. It was cold. The first real cold weekend of the fall. Summer had held on longer than normal, then handed things directly over to late November on a Saturday night in the middle of October. The wind was blowing, and temperatures were hovering in the forties.

Sure, a lot of the people at the Patty Plop probably wouldn’t be in a condition to be bothered by the cold after sundown. But a lot of our attendees are older. They don’t want to stand out in a field getting cold. They’d much rather be cozy and warm, listening to the whir of the bingo balls and the dulcet tones of our callers.

We would be fine.

Still, I breathed a sigh of relief when I pulled up at four-thirty and saw the line of attendees stretching past the curb and into the newly installed, bollard-protected section of the arena parking lot.

Yep. It was going to be a good night. These people loved us.

Shortly before the doors opened, there was a bit of a kerfuffle. A lady and her older friend were allowed inside and whisked away into the bowels of the arena by the EMT. After the doors opened, I saw her again, settled at her seat with some ice, arranging her troll dolls and whatever other small charms, tokens, and spells she thought might summon favor from the bingo gods that evening.

It wasn’t until much later, when I caught up with Elizabeth during intermission to grab dinner, that I heard the rest of the story.

“Did you hear about the lady falling?”

“Is that what happened? I saw her with some ice.”

Elizabeth nodded. “Oh, yeah. Max was working the front with me. Did you know he’s a nurse practitioner? He asked her if she thought she should go to the hospital.”

“But I saw her with the EMT.”

“That’s what she told Max. She was fine, the EMT had taken care of her, and she’d probably go get checked out after she played.”

“That’s wild.”

Elizabeth nodded. “That’s not all. Right before intermission, she said she was hurting and wanted more ice. She asked if I could go find EMT Chad.”

“Chad?”

“Apparently that’s his name. Well, he came out and gave her more ice, and then the two of them started comparing notes because apparently they’re in PT together.”

I looked at her.

“And Chad was saying he wasn’t sure how his wrist was holding up. This town.”

I nodded and glanced at the clock. Only a few seconds remained before the next round of games. “Well, sweetheart, that’s our target market.”

Postscript

Several weeks later, Elizabeth and I stopped to grab dinner at one of the local restaurants the kids don’t complain about too much. One of the servers is a regular at Bingomania, but had told us she was going to the Patty Plop.

As soon as we were seated, she made a beeline to our table.

“Hey, guys! It worked out! I won the Patty Plop!”

“That’s fantastic! So it was worthwhile going, then.”

She nodded.

I smiled. “You know, now you need to bring that same luck back to February’s Bingo Mania.”

She started off to help another table. “I’ll be there!”

See what I mean about the same pile of money transferring around?