What do you call it?

This very topic is always one in my house. Considering I am a transplant to Ohio. What do you call your carbonated beverages? I have always called it "soda". Here it is called "pop".

The picture below is a breakdown by state and county of what certain demographics call soda.

I find it very interesting as in all of my travels I holds relatively true to this map.

Oprah here I come!!!

Today a wish came true for me... I was finally able to get tickets to the Oprah Show.

My girlfriends and I are going on a weekend trip to Chicago in March and we figured we would try to see Oprah. Tickets were available on February 13th. I was unable to call Friday as I was traveling to Southern Ohio with my boss. I tried ALL day on Friday, including my hubby and one of my girlfriends that is going on our trip.

I was calling on 2 phones approximately 10 calls a minute... Multiply our efforts by a solid 6 hours and yeah, you get the math.

I was very pissed at Oprah yesterday because I was able to get through but missed the voice prompt due to a crabby baby. Ugh... So today I figured I would give it a shot here and there in between work. Ten minutes before I left I was winding down my day and figured what the hell... What do I have to lose? I tried about 6 times. THE PHONE RINGS!!! I couldn't believe it... Today I kept getting an "all circuits busy" message. A message I didn't receive yesterday. So I fully expected the same messages for the remaining 10 minutes of my day. So... back to THE PHONE RINGS!!!

I am prompted by a friendly Oprah Winfrey employee voice. She said if you want ticket reservations, Press 1 -- what I missed yesterday. Now comes the hold music. I text my girlfriends and tell them I got through and told them to pray. At 4pm CST Oprah's phone lines close. With my luck I was totally expecting my call to be dropped. I continue waiting... and waiting...

The hold music changes and an my Oprah Angel, Mark, answers the phone. He tells me what days there are available, all Wednesday's and Thursday's and one Friday. I sigh in disbelief. I am disappointed, but I accept it. I then ask what time she tapes again as I was dumb founded and couldn't remember. I fly into Chicago on a Thursday around 3. I then ask if we could go on a stand-by or a waiting list... I told Mark that this is our only chance... We are away from our hubby's and our babies and it's a girls weekend. Mark then says he has 3 available seats for her morning taping... I damn near jumped through the phone. I told Mark if I could jump through the phone I'd kiss him. Afterwards he took all of our information and gave us instructions for the show and told me he'd "see us at the show". Before I said good-bye I told Mark he was an Angel and I thanked him profusely. He was so pleasant and kind. I can't imagine having to be in that position of having to answer the phone of crazed fans... Perhaps that's why you listen to calming hold music for 20 minutes!

I am *bleeping* excited I can't stand it. Never in a million years did I ever think I'd be given the opportunity to go see her show.

I just won the lottery, literally...