A Once in a Lifetime Experience (I hope)

On Wednesday morning (3am) I left with my house mates Lindsey and Victoria and 4 guy friends for Richmond to attend the Chick-fil-a opening there. It's a huge deal, apparently, and we wanted to go check it out. So, we got there at 5am and at 6 am they count everyone in the parking lot and close down the entrances, giving out raffle tickets and, through that, choosing 100 lucky winners (of the 265 that were present!). These 100 people have the opportunity to win free chick-fil-a for a whole year (52 free meal coupons, so once a week for a year) IF -and it's a big IF- they stay on the property for 24 hours. So, once your number is called, you have a few minutes to gather your camping stuff from your car and set up camp in one of the parking spaces on the property. It's CRAZY! But, we're young and it's an adventure, so we were excited when 5 of the 7 of us made it into the 100! We agreed to split up the coups (as we called them) between all of us evenly. Luckily, they allow "guests" of the 100 who may have driven with them or whatnot, so all of us were given space to camp and fed throughout the 24 hours. While we were there we recognized some other JMU students and quickly joined forces with their 5, creating an unstoppable mega-team of youngsters compared to the shocking amount of over-65 individuals and family units that attend these things from all over the country. (More on that later... *cringe*). Working together in ruthless tact and speed, we secured the three most convenient, strategic spots of the lot. I may or may not have scooted and whirled a disoriented grandmother or two out of the way... juuuuust kidding :O

After all the 100 are called and placed, the true diehard chick-fil-a fans begin the games. (Games: not really games, unless you call just sitting around for 24 hours games...). I haven't shared the worst part of this experience, the part that no one could have guess or controlled, the really sick part: the weather. Yes, the weather. Ahhh weather... how it delighted in torturing us. It's like it KNEW it had 24 hours to play with our little minds. A parking lot full of crazies with nowhere to go...

When we got to Richmond it was POURING hot drops of rain. So hot that wearing a raincoat was like an unbearable punishment, but so wet that you really didn't have a choice. It stopped raining just after we were finished setting up camp, of course. Then, the heat set in... The clouds hung like a thick horizontal wall, trapping the steamy humidity from the rain under itself, and us with it. The sun went to work, baking the clouds which in turn radiated the heat into the mist that was clinging to us. We were wet. We were hot. We were hungry for breakfast.

So we slept. It was the only thing TO do.

I woke up to the drip of my sweat from my eyebrow to my nose. (Sidenote: I don't have a unibrow, I was laying sideways not standing up, OK?). The heat overwhelmed me. Inside the tent was like my own personal rain forest hell. I unzipped the netting and stuck my head outside. The "breeze" filtered down my shirt and refreshed me for a nanosecond. Then it was back to misery. I tried to encourage myself with thoughts like "well, at least I probably slept for a solid part of the day". Wrong. It was 8:30am.

I could continue about the weather forever, it definitely was the major wet blanket (haha...ha...ehh) of the trip. BUT there are so many OTHER interesting things to discuss, like how the heck do all these senior citizens sleep in tents on concrete, and how do you justify bringing a newborn baby to endure the unfriendly climate? There are a million other little eccentricities of such an event that I can't even begin to share. Like how we actually had a great time. How, even though we were miserable, we were laughing the whole time. Maybe because we were doing it together, going through it together, and getting to know each other in a way that is different than the norm. Suffering together - and it brought us close and made us be creative and silly. I know I spent most of this post talking about how awful it was, but really, that was just to make you laugh. My true feelings about the 24 hrs are ones of smiles and good memories. All in all, I will never do it again, but I will never forget the good times had by all. Even the senior citizens.