I can remember it like it was yesterday. I stood there with my ridiculous perm, my Amish looking dress and palms sweatier than a bald man’s head in 115 degree weather.

Me in 4th Grade (Don’t Mind The Soy Sauce Stains)

My heart was racing. Was I going to remember every single word? Would I remember to change the sound of my voice for each character? Most importantly, was I gonna win?! It was my fourth grade, storytelling contest, and it was the first thing I had ever entered in my young life. It was that moment in time which would contribute to making me one of the most annoying people on the planet.

I remember the teacher making an announcement about the contest which entailed memorizing a short story, and then, reciting it in front of a panel of judges. There was a $50 savings bond prize, and a trip to the city to compete against other schools if you won. The news instantly gave me butterflies in my stomach! I was going to enter, and I was going to re-tell that god damn story with more passion and more heart than Dr.Seuss and Walt Disney put together! I practiced and practiced and practiced until I was eating, sleeping, and dreaming Goldie Locks and the Three Bears. That’s all I could think about.

Finally, the day came and I told my five minute story to the panel of judges which was made up of my teacher, the school’s principal, and the lunch lady that sported a faint mustache and was missing a tooth. I told that story like it was going out of style, and I was friggen awesome! Those bears never sounded so real and that Goldie Locks never sounded so Golden. I was a natural! Unfortunately, I wasn’t as good as I thought, because I finished third, and the prize for 3^rd place was an honorable mention certificate with my name spelled incorrectly on it, letting everyone know I was a loser who couldn’t tell a story.

It takes a lot more to knock me down though. I entered that same story telling contest the following year and placed second.  Still a loser and without a prize,  I knew that one day I would win big and be on top.

Over the next twenty years, my addiction of entering contests spiraled out of control. It took a long time for anyone to really notice that I had a severe competitive gene in me that would one day piss off most of my friends and eventually get me banned from Twitter forever. There were poetry contests, biggest NKOTB fan contests, teenage modeling contests (not only was I competitive, I also thought I was a young Brooke Shields except I had a gap in between my front teeth and hair frizzier than Buckwheat)
,

photo contests, mother-daughter contests, writing contests…you name it…I entered it (and lost each and every one of them). Now you would think that one would be smart enough to find another addiction like drugs or alcohol to involve themselves in because people that are addicted to those things are usually used to being losers. It would be a win win for me, but nooooooo I had to keep embarrassing myself and now that there is internet, my family and friends are now affected as well.

Fast forward to the era of the internet where Facebook and Twitter are your gateway to annoying every single person that knows you on an almost daily basis. I had been pretty good up until November 2010. I think I entered maybe one or two contests but wasn’t computer savvy enough to know how to put myself out there, begging for votes. There was a contest, World’s Greatest Couple, sponsored by Michael Hill Jewelry. The prize, a huge diamond engagement ring valued at almost a million dollars! I don’t wear much jewelry but I did need a new washer and dryer and a lawn mower, so what better way to get those things than to enter this gem of a contest, win the ring and then sell it to buy that LG front load washer I had my eye on for the past two years.

The contest required my oh-so-patient boyfriend and I to complete sixteen different, couples challenges. Some were photos together, essays about how great we were and videos of us declaring our love.

Then we had to ask all of our friends to log on to the site and vote for each and every completed challenge. I went so overboard with asking people to vote that Twitter actually banned me from their site. My addiction had now black listed me from a site that was created to help people promote themselves! I didn’t care all that much because I got Donato to wear a dress…..

AND dress as a banana in Times Square.

Not only did we manage not to get beaten up as we walked around NYC dressed as fruit, we actually finished in 14^th place out of 100,000 people.  Didn’t win the ring and lost about twenty-eight Facebook friends.  Embarrassed my family because photos of me and my boyfriend dressed as bananas were printed on the front page of the local newspaper and probably traumatized my son for life after having him come with us to Time Square and bear witness to our shenanigans, but when all was said and done, that contest contributed to a whole thirty days of no bickering between me and my better half. That was definitely a world record in my book.

Check Out One Of The Three Articles Written About Us In The Paper

Our Contest Entry Page

It took about three weeks for my friends to stop complaining about their Facebook newsfeeds being clogged up by me posting reminders to vote for that couples contest. I was a tad bit embarrassed but apparently not embarrassed enough because…what did I do??? I entered another contest. This time it was an amateur photography contest. I sent my photo in, made the final round and had my photo posted online along with four other photos. All you had to do was go to the site, click my picture and vote.  I was a little smarter this time and only posted it on my Facebook two or three times, but I did send out a mass email asking people to vote. It was actually a good run because I only received one email back asking to stop emailing them. Pissing only one person off was actually another world record for me. I was impressed with myself. That was like a contest all in its own. I wound up winning the photo contest. I was ecstatic! The prize was a print of my photo, matted and professionally framed.

Guess what?  That was over three months ago, and I still haven’t gotten my prize. It’s like God doesn’t want me to be a winner like Charlie Sheen. Only I would win a contest and then get screwed over by not receiving the prize.They did allow me to submit my own write up though which appeared in the SI Advance:

The Winner of ‘My Neighborhood’ Photo Contest

This only led me to feel that since I didn’t get a real prize, I still hadn’t really won a contest so……….I entered another one.

I received an email from my aunt and a  friend telling me about this contest sponsored by Casale Jewelers. All you have to do is post a Facebook status asking people to “like” that status mentioning the contest and the top 10 couples with the most likes get interviewed, and then, five couples are chosen to race for a $10,000 engagement ring. It sounded so easy, yet I was so hesitant because I still wasn’t fully out of the clear from the last contest shit I pulled. I toyed with the idea to enter for a full two minutes. I thought about the fact that my boyfriend had saved three dollars for my ring over the past four years, and that, if I didn’t do this, I would wind up with a QVC ring on my finger.  Also, if I won the ring and we got married, I would have great health and dental insurance being that he is a teacher. I could even get that root canal and crown I need so badly and it would be fully covered! Lastly, my religious uncle who always calls me to inform me that Donato and I are living in sin (premarital sex!) would have to stop bothering me with his bible nonsense because I would be on the road to becoming an honest woman. Sounds good to me! I logged onto Facebook and posted the status. I was entered. Watch out whatever friends I have left! The Von is on the road to finally winning something and I don’t care if my boyfriend isn’t ready to commit yet because I am committed to actually winning and never having to enter another contest again.

So here is my last attempt to exploit myself for a prize:

If you have a Facebook please click the link below and FRIEND me. Then once I accept go to my page and "LIKE" my status that mentions Casale Jewelers.

My Facebook Page

The world will be a much duller and less annoying place but if I make it into the Top 10 I will never enter another contest again.