THE CARROLL NEWS: You're Wrong, I'm Rafferty : Can't Kuwait to Relay for Life

You're Wrong, I'm Rafferty : Can't Kuwait to Relay for Life
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Andrew Rafferty on 03 April, 2008 12:40:00
 
This year’s Relay for Life is encouraging teams to choose a country and
come up with a fund-raiser based on it.  This is a great theme for me because I
am very well-traveled.  I mean, I can’t even count how many times
I’ve been to Canada.
Naturally, as soon as I heard this theme I started brainstorming.  I was told
that most of my ideas were not “politically correct” or “were
in bad taste.”  Since The Carroll News team won’t be using these
ideas for those reasons, I will share them with you.
One thought was to choose North Korea as our country and sell Warheads–
you know, that really sour candy.  Apparently some people on our team did not
want to be associated with that.  It was better than my original idea of
choosing North Korea and selling enriched uranium.
With the North Korea option off the table, I focused my attention on the name. 
Needless to say, I came up with some good ones.  “We can’t Kuwait
for a cure” was a favorite of mine.  Our table would be covered in sand
and we would raffle off gift cards to gas stations.
“Irish there was a cure for cancer” was another great idea of mine,
but we can’t sell alcohol so the idea lost its luster.  “A cure for
cancer Israel” didn’t make the cut because of religious tensions on
staff.  “Hungary for a cure” was dropped when we realized our
country would have to be Hungary.  To be ironic, I suggested we be Turkey and
sell ham.
Choosing Mexico would allow us to raffle off Chipotle gift cards and cheap
labor.  How about choosing England and selling toothbrushes?  We might be Panama
and raffle off a canal.
“Kenya help me find a cure?” just didn’t feel right. 
“Iraq up a lot of money for cancer research” was too much of a
stretch, though it has a great selling point.  We could sell broken items from
Pottery Barn (Colin Powell reference).  “Oman I can’t believe
you’re fighting cancer” is too obscure. “Ghana find a
cure” basically wrote itself.
As great as all those names are, I had some even better money-makers that
people didn’t buy into.  Choosing Belgium and selling waffles apparently
has some logistical problems.
I guess no one wants to carry a waffle around.  I also liked the idea of being
Iceland and selling popsicles, being Canada and selling bacon or being France
and selling a white flag of surrender.
I also pitched the idea that we pick Sudan and for a fund-raiser we sue a guy
named Dan.  If your name is Dan watch out because I may file a lawsuit against
you in the coming weeks.
Seriously, if you give us $5 on Relay day I will give you a shout out in my
next column.
It’s a lot, but this is prime real estate.  Some other people suggested
we have people pay to throw a pie at me, but that won’t work because no
one would want to throw anything at me.  Just imagine, [your name here].