The sun had now dipped down far enough that it was casting long shadows across the asphalt of the schoolyard. The minister of the local church was standing in front of a tented temporary stage rolling around a barrel as fat as a capybara while giving a running commentary on a handheld microphone. His black clad arm reached in for the grand prize – two thousand dollars worth of travel vouchers donated by XYZ travel at Chadstone…… The Lawler family. The name swept the schoolyard like radar, but nobody pinged with delight – but somebody yelled out that they knew them. Again the hand reached into the barrel, his fingers cutting through a thousand tiny moths softly nipping at his fingers another small square was secured and dug out of the pile. Sam Quentin- again no response from the crowd, but a phone number would deliver the news.

Sometimes I have to go and sell raffle tickets for various causes, I carry about a book of tickets like an executioner waiting to find a victim, most people are good hearted and the option of winning a car is helpful, and for two bucks can you go wrong? But I do get annoyed by random phone calls asking me to sell for causes I’m not so concerned about, or for that matter random phone calls almost demanding I donate. Pre-prepared donation speeches start pouring out as soon as you say who you are -Now I just stop them – unless it’s one I trust, and say I’ve already donated to charity this week… etc. I guess for them at the other end it’s bit of a lottery- but if my profile already has the word SUCKER written across the top they might think I’m an easy mark……