I play pool in a local fun league. There’s roughly a hundred people in the league, divided into about 20 teams. Every Wednesday we get together and attempt to pocket balls for the sake of entertainment. By virtue of my ranking (average games won) among these folks I am the captain of one of these teams. This year was a fairly successful year for me and my team. My team finished second in the finals and I personally ranked 7th in the league.

At the end of each season, the league throws a kickass banquet, complete with awards, prizes, and a pool tournament. They cater in BBQ steak and have a buffet-style spread of baked potatoes and various salads. They usually draw names for prizes that vary in size from a $300.00 golfing weekend get-a-way to a $75 dollar Walmart coupon. Usually, there’s about half as many prizes as there are qualifying members. Pretty good odds of winning a prize. But this year, there was a prize for every single player in the league. Pretty awesome. On top of that, they gave away a shitload of Dooly’s cash and Pizza Delight coupons. In the draws, I picked up a pool cue (which I sold for a hundred bucks) and two pizza coupons.

We tried to use the coupons that night on the way home, but Pizza Delight closes a little earlier than 2:30 a.m. apparently. I put the coupons in my shirt pocket, we stopped at Greco for pizza, then we went home, went to bed and the next day continued about our normal business and household chores. Changing clothes from the washer to the dryer, I noticed a bunch of little pieces of paper. Oh no! My pizza coupons! Oh well… shit happens.

That was two weeks ago.

Friday, I was wearing that same shirt and noticed a ball of something in the shirt pocket. It was the pizza coupons, all balled up after being washed into raw pulp and then reconverted to a ball of paper after going through the dryer. I showed it to a colleague and half jokingly asked if Pizza Delight would accept it. She suggested that I wet the paper and attempt to unfold it again. I did just that and after some careful prying and spreading I was able to produce a couple of scraps of paper closely resembling their original form. They looked like something discovered in an archaeological dig. I let them dry and pressed them inside a notebook and went to Pizza Delight lunchtime today. After some giggling and poking fun at my expense, the nice young lady behind the counter wrote me up some new coupons and I was on my way!

The prize that keeps on giving. Free pizza… twice! Kind of.