Please Please Please let me be caller #9!
Why? Caller #9 wins a pair of tickets to a private pre-tour Bon Jovi concert at Mohegan Sun Arena in Connecticut from radio station 96.5 WTIC, that’s why.
And so it begun.
We set phone alarms to go off at 20 past the hour from 9 am til 6 pm, 7 days a week (with a reprieve until noon on sundays) so we wouldn’t forget. Not that it would have been possible to forget.
We kept the radio on no matter where either of us was or what we were doing, not wanting to take the chance that any hour’s chance to call happened a few minutes early or late to skew our chances.
Although 10 winners per day for 18 days seemed like a no-brainer to win, no Bon Jovi fan wants to take a chance of not being one of those 180 winners. Not when the stakes are so high. Not when it could mean missing out on a such a uniquely small and special show.
At least 2 radio stations were doing this contest, one from Boston and WTIC out of Hartford. As I brushed up on my math skills, this meant about 360 winners. Minus 3 hours each sunday brings it down to 342 winners. Times 2 tickets per winner brings it to 684 people going to this show.
Could there be another way to win that we didn’t know about? Either way, we’re talking much more intimate a gathering that most of the sold out arenas and stadiums we’re used to seeing Bon Jovi play in.
I was wishing I had paid more attention in statistics class, to figure out our odds of winning and how many times we’d have to dial each hour to assure ourselves a seat at this can’t-miss event.
Everything in our world became secondary to winning these tickets.
Since my husband and I are currently involved in rehabbing an old historic home, that meant leaping off ladders with wet paint brushes in our hands each time the alarm went off. Giving tours of the completed upstairs apartment? They’d have to be scheduled at half past every hour, so even if they took a while, they wouldn’t interfere with our ability to dial in by the next 20 after. Driving to the store for supplies? Walking through Home Depot? Have to go to the bathroom? All would have to wait until we completed our chance each hour.
This was not a game. This was Bon Jovi.
After the first weekend without a win, panic started setting in. We began noticing strange behaviors in one another. And I began to realize we were exhibiting many of the things I had learned about back in college for my psychology degree.
We had become mice stuck in a maze. Rats tirelessly hitting a button in hopes of food pellets. Dogs salivating at the sound of a bell. We had become experimental animals in search of our Bon Jovi cheese.
Pavlov and Skinner must have been sitting up in their graves, taking out paper and pencil to take notes. Since it’s Bon Jovi, Freud had already taken notice, given most of us revert into our inner “id”s at the sights and sounds of JBJ.
Twenty after the hour was now paired with the phone alarm and the station’s “call now” Bon Jovi commercial, which were all now resulting in our dialing the station’s phone number. Because this pairing happened 10 times a day, soon even the first note of the song in the ad was enough to start my heart racing. Calling was no longer a conscious act, but rather an automatic response. No matter what we were doing, the ding of the alarm stopped us in our tracks and we began dialing the closest phone.
Pavlov should be patting himself on the back. We had become classically conditioned.
Not to be outdone, Skinner waited patiently. And he wasn’t disappointed.
Our calling techniques were being shaped by what happened immediately after each happenstance novel behavior. If the line rang, it reinforced the behavior which preceded it, and we continued to do it. If we got a busy signal, it reduced the likelihood we would repeat it. Reinforcement and punishment were subconsciously creating superstitious-like behaviors. We were being operantly conditioned. We were learning in it’s most primal sense.
For my husband, he once rang and was told he was caller #1 from his house work phone, so he continued to use that specific work phone to make his calls. He also rang in once as caller #2 from our downstairs home phone, so he continued to use that one too. This meant he was now trying to juggle two phones at once, back and forth between dialing two phones simultaneously.
I tried the double phone strategy, but accidentally hung up once when one line rang. This immediately extinguished that behavior in me, and I knew I could only focus on one phone at a time.
Once at home on our cordless phone, while sitting on the arm of the couch, my line rang and I was caller #4. From then on, every time I called from home, I sat on that couch arm.
From our work site I called from my cell phone. Once, while sitting on the floor, my line rang and I was caller #8. From then on, every time I called from work I did it sitting on the floor.
Operant conditioning was shaping our behavior, whether we liked it or not.
By day 7, we began questioning if we would ever win. We had gradually grown weary of being always on alert. It had been days since either of us experienced a ringing or answered line. Without continued reinforcement, our motivation to maintain our calling behavior was waning.
But just when all hope seemed lost, my husband’s line was answered and he was caller #6. Motivation was re-ignited! Intermittent reinforcement had shown it’s ringing little head and we were full power ahead once again. Being reminded that someone over there really was still answering, we would not give up so easily next time.
Little idiosyncrasies developed. My husband would begin dialing at 17 minutes past the hour, and I at 19 past, since we had both been reinforced by the sound of a ring at least once at those times. He made his calls now sitting in the green chair at our work site, and I had to hold my cell phone up to my right ear, since these had also resulted in at least one instance of our desired reward – the sound of a ringing phone line.
It was day 8 now, and Friday the 13th. At 4:20 we began our dialing dance. The Bon Jovi ad was playing over the radio. My line was ringing and ringing. Maybe that’s a good sign I hoped beyond hope.
Then I heard the voice. A voice on the other end asking me “Who is going to see Bon Jovi?” “It’s me! It’s me! It’s me!” is all I could get out as I excitedly hopped around the room. When asked for my name, I drew a blank. “I’m so excited I can’t even remember my name”, I nervously uttered.
We had managed to win the ultimate reward. The Bon Jovi cheese at the end of our phone button filled maze.
It was such a relief to finally be able to relax, and step off of our hamster wheel of dialing. We no longer had to be slave to the clock, the radio, or the phone.
That is, until the next Bon Jovi reward is dangled out in front of us. At which time there’s no doubt we’ll jump right back into the maze and start devotedly hitting buttons for that priceless cheese again.