Only Me: How I Almost Killed Myself Trying to Win $10,000

A local radio station, KISS-FM, does "No Commercial Mondays." From 10 am to midnight, it's straight music except for the occasional deejay lead-in.

A few weeks ago, the station started advertising a contest. Mondays would still be commercial-free, but if they played a commercial, the first person to call in wins $10,000.

I listen to KISS, usually in the morning while getting ready for work and it's in radio station rotation when I'm in the car. At work, most of the time, I listen to Pandora and ESPN. I thought the contest was cool, but I wasn't really motivated to change my listening habits for it.

So last Monday, I get off work and was driving home. The radio was on KISS. A song went off and on came a commercial. I wasn't really paying attention, when all of it sudden it hit me that the commercial was kinda long.

And then my brain kicked into gear.

"Commercial?! Wait. Is it Monday? It's Monday! They're not supposed to be playing commercials. Where's my phone?!"

I started digging into my junky purse with my right hand for my phone while steering with my left hand.

I found the phone with little trouble, but that's where the real trouble started.

Have I mentioned that I hate driving? I'm not good at it and it stresses me out. I don't like talking on the phone and driving at the same time because my attention gets split and it stresses me out trying to concentrate on both things at once. Remember that.

So I got the phone and I'm trying to concentrate on the road, and at the same time, trying to find the icon on the phone screen that would lead to me making a call. I find the icon, press it and get to the phone page.

But there's a phone number already typed in!

Ugh. I guess it was the last number I dialed.

And it wouldn't go away!

I was trying to delete it and drive at the same time and stressing out because I knew time was wasting away and because the stupid, wrong number wouldn't go away.

Then the freaking screen just went black and the phone wouldn't do anything. Argh!

Did I forget to mention that, in the middle of all this, I got honked at because I accidentally drifted into the next lane?

Fun times.

So yeah, I didn't win $10,000. This other lady did. She sounded very excited. Hmmph.

Only me.