DAY 0: One phone call & Brandon's X-Mas goes down the chimney, then the plumbing. But St. Jude comes back solid with yet even more hope.

What the heck am I talking about? Take a seat and try to remain calm as the absurdity of the whole situation sinks in.

Here's what's transpired over the last few days:

Day 1-A Few Days Ago: Generally, the blog's going great. Lots of support. Things looking good for Brandon. Not breaking viewership records but don't care so long as people are fans & we're all doing something good. Nothing bad. Not even a hint of a foul smell in the air.

Then the smell hits me and it's not pleasant.

1. I posted one reader's comment in an effort to be blogger objective. It raised some questions, one that made sense yet was something I had no control over (4000 points for a personal DVD player seeming too be too much for too little— Coke set the points-to-prizes structure up, we just enter codes for 'em.) The other questions I honestly had no answers for— the rules for Mycokerewards.com, which I'm still not 100% on, I assume were set up to thwart people trying to cheat the system for personal gain and probably sell the prizes on ebay, which has never been my aim. But rather, my aim was to keep my focus and passion for this project going full-steam ahead. At least unless someone thought it was a bad thing— which would baffle me— and could provide either rational, or legal, reasoning for me to stop trying to help out a kid in need.

2. Someone had a beef, yet I'm still uncertain why they care. A few days later, I get a call from a contact at St. Jude Childrens Research Hospital organization saying some anonymous woman who had read my blog had called them questioning the credibility of this project, a disbelief brought about by the comment I posted, and they were having to look into it. This raised a flag with their national people in the arena of charitable donations.

[Side note, when I came up with this idea, the unofficial word was something to the effect of, "Sure, Brandon would totally appreciate a gift. That would be soooo nice." But I mistakenly assumed national St. Jude were on board with this project (and were eagerly awaiting whatever charitable donation we would be sending them come Christams time, or later) because of a casual phone conversation. Unfortunately in my haste, I didn't get an official official approval from the national group and now I look like a certified idiot. My bad. Lesson learned.]

— I mean I just figured most people don't part too easily with their money even if they'd like to help but gimmicky promotions seemed like an easy objective to tackle- so, get people to donate what they're probably not going to cash in for limited prizes. And St. Jude is a great organization that does wonders for kids in need, so I figured they deserved any and all help they could get. And since most of us don't make Bill Gates type money and thus can't donate boatloads of cashish, I thought, why not get a mass of people together to make a grand statement that organizations like St. Jude were much appreciated. Guilty me.

3. I get another message from a contact at St. Jude saying I have to pull the plug on the project and yank Brandon's name off of it (which I'm in the process of trying to do but I'm not xml, html or other-literate so it may take a few days.) because it turns out Brandon's status as patient AND employee for St. Jude disqualifies him from receiving gifts over $25 in value.

4. Steam shoots from my ears and an adage comes to mind in big, bold, ugly-red lettering type: "No good deed goes unpunished."

5. I think of all the hateful things I could say about the woman who called and complained/questioned the whole project and caused this ruckus.

6. Then I pause, take an elephant's worth of deep breaths, remember that I'm not an evil person and that vengace wouldn't be in the spirit of this whole gig, and decide to forgive, forget and begin thinking of a way to make it up to Brandon.

7. I get a very nice email from St. Jude with a solution to the problem. Eureka! We can still do some good! We donate the DVD player to their leukemia treatment ward where patients can while away the time knocking out the entire Harry Potter series or Thomas the Train or whatever floats their boats while they get fixed up with hopefully curing medicines.

SOOOOOOOoooooooooo... I apologize to St. Jude for having caused them any fretting over the past few days. And I'd really like to apologize to Brandon, but I guess I'll do that in person. FYI, I tried to contact Coke about this whole project months and months ago but I'm guessing they've got more important global issues to deal with and honestly that's all good in my book— less Chef's in my/our kitchen.

And just so you know, I'm planning on hooking Brandon up out of my own pocket as one human to another (not employee) just for Brandon being Brandon and for him having to be let down like this, although I know he'll be psyched to know other patients are going to reap the benefits.

And if any more issues come up, feel free to hit the HelpAKid email. But please don't take any more of St. Jude's time away from helping the kids, just hit me and I'll get in touch with the local St. Jude person to see if/how we can deal with it first. Please.
Remember that this is actually a good thing we're trying to do here. And remember to keep smiling.

Thx.
stu