I'm a dentist by day - but I moonlight as a radio contest champion
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Version 0 of 1. I go all in on my hobbies – just ask my husband about that time extreme couponing took up four years of my life. Most people, though, know me as a peppy, suburban dentist, wife and mom of two young kids. But when I’m not hanging with my family or fixing teeth, I’m obsessing about winning radio contests. When everyone else I know listens to the radio, they stay on one channel, listen to a song or two and change the station when commercials start. I’m much more methodical than that. I flip channels almost constantly, hunting for mention of a contest. I sit in my car for hours if I know there are a few contests coming on. I know the best times to call in, and I know what radio stations are the easiest and most difficult to win on. Most of this is done on my commute, but I waste a LOT of time trying to win any and all radio contests. I’m not sure if it’s the amount of time that I devote to listening for contests, random luck or the simple fact that more and more people aren’t listening to FM radio anymore, but win I do. In the past 5 years I’ve won a couple DVD sets, movie passes to my local cinema, and a boatload of concert tickets: Dave Matthews Band, French Montana, George Ezra, Ne-Yo and Ludacris and private concerts with Selena Gomez and Ella Henderson. I won Kevin Hart tickets, too, but the station said I’d won too recently to qualify. My biggest win was an all-expenses-paid trip to the Hollywood Film Awards in California. Best date night ever. I got my first taste of victory way back in middle school. I was the 100th caller to my favorite radio station, and I won backstage passes to an N’Sync concert. Oh. My. God. As any teenage girl can attest, that was better than winning the lottery. From then on, I was hooked, and whenever I listened to the radio, I would call into any and all contests. Then college, dental school and life turned studying into my main hobby for awhile. When couponing followed, radio contests faded into memory. But about five years ago, I was coming home from being on call at the hospital during my residency when I heard a contest coming on. It was 3am and I called in, not knowing what the contest was for. I won a DVD boxed set of season 12 of the show ER. I’ve never watched it, but the high I got from winning rekindled that fire to win, and it’s still burning. So when you see me in my dental garb and you think little of it, know that I’m secretly a radio-contest superhero. Not because I’m really strong, or unusually brave or have a desire to throw myself into danger to protect others. (If anything, I’m the “cower and hide” type.) It’s because I’m going to the hottest concert in town, courtesy of my local radio station. |