Sally had a long drive ahead of her. It was a chilly, frosty November morning in 1996. She had her 5 year old daughter, Anne in the back seat of her purple mini van as they listened to the same radio show they listened to every morning, “Melissa in the Morning”. They laughed as “The Macarena” played, Anne begged her mom to do the dance, Sally, refusing with a chuckle. She was trying to drive of course!
The morning was pretty typical. Getting ready, driving Anne to preschool and then off to work. Sally was wearing tan dress pants, a white blouse, a red sweatervest, nylons that were a light color, and brown pumps, a typical business casual outfit. She also was sporting a black peacoat and black leather gloves for the first time that year. Her husband recently was laid off and technically a stay at home dad, so money was tight, especially with Christmas coming up. Dollar signs were running through her head constantly trying to figure out how to get through the holidays, and give her daughter a wonderful Christmas.
Right after Macarena came on, there was an ad for the new and hot “Tickle Me Elmo Doll”. “Oh perfect. Anne has been talking about this non stop, and it’s just a reminder of what I probably can’t afford.” She thought to herself, as if on cue Anne started talking about how much she loved Elmo and hoped Santa would bring it for her. It almost brought tears to her eyes. Just then, the DJ, Melissa comes on the air
“And we’re back. I can’t believe how popular that Tickle Me Elmo Doll is. They are just flying off the shelf! Moms, good luck trying to get one this Christmas.” Sally nodded at this “Well in about an hour, one lucky mom or dad will be going home with a free Tickle Me Elmo if they can accept the challenge I have laid out for them. We’ll be taking calls during the break and we’re looking for number 10! We’ll be right back.” Luckily, just then, she pulled into the school. She wanted to call immediately, but needed to get her daughter in on time. She quickly got her out of her car seat, walked her to the door and gave her a quick hug and goodbye, she jogged back to the car pulls out her car phone and calls the number she has memorized from listening every day..” A female producer answered.
“Hello, WTIW?” she quickly chimed in, her heart racing “Yes, I’m calling about the elmo contest?” “Name please?”
“Sally.”
“Hold, please”
Sally hears a live feed of the show over the phone and hears Melissa comes back from commercial and says
“Ok we’re back and we have our caller 10…Judy?” Sally can hear a woman answer, and is confused as to why she’s still on the phone.
“Yes! Good Morning! I can’t believe I’m on! I never get through!” the lady chirped.
“Yes, now you have to let me know if you’ll accept our challenge, Judy”
“Oh, I’ll do anything for that Elmo doll!”
“Well, we’ll see about that. The winner of the elmo doll needs to…” there is a drum roll “come in the studio today and get tickled for 5 minutes ON AIR without saying stop! Can you do that Judy?”
Sally realizes this may not be worth it, as she would be a goner…There is a pause on the phone. “umm… you…mean like you would tickle me? Like for real? I don’t know if I could handle that for that long. I’m pretty ticklish…I actually think I’m going to have to pass. I just don’t think I’d make it.” “I’m right with you sister.” Sally says to herself. “Oh that’s too bad, sorry about that. How about caller 11….Sally?”
It takes Sally a second to realize it’s her they are talking about “Yes?” she blurts out. “Did you hear what we’re asking of our contestant? Judy wasn’t up for the challenge, do you think you could be?” Due to her level of ticklishness, she knew this would be nearly impossible. “um…” Then she thought of her options, financial troubles, and the image of Anne having the perfect Christmas “Challenge accepted. When do I come in” She blurts out, and immediately takes a deep breath with her eyes closed. *Ding Ding Ding!* “Well did you hear that people? We have a contestant! Can you come in in the next hour Sally?” Having been holding her breath in anxiety, she has to release to answer “Sure can. Looking forward to it.” Melissa chuckles “well ok, Sally. We’ll see you in a bit. Cynthia our producer will give you all the details.” She is cut off and Cynthia takes over the call. “You sound a little shell shocked. Are you ok? You’re off the air now.” Sally tries to snap out of it “yeah…I’m..I’m fine. So wait in order to win, I need to be tickled? For 5 minutes???” Cynthia laughs at the reaction. “yes, that’s the challenge. Ousr address is 234 Washington. Right downtown. We’re on the 12thfloor. Just tell the secrurity person you are coming to the 12th floor and check in with the admin at the desk. I would just make sure you use the restroom before. We’ll have some forms for you to sign, and hopefully you’ll walk out with your Elmo. Sound good?” A bit overwhelmed, Sally replies “Sure. See you then!” She hangs up..not totally sure how she’s going to handle this. She could feel her toes curling in her pumps just thinking about it.
She makes a quick call into work telling them she isn’t feeling well, and may try to come in later, but might miss the whole day. She hangs up and starts her drive into the city. Her stomach is full of butterflies and her heart races the whole way there, many times needing to take deep breaths. She goes in the parking garage and pulls into a spot, looks quickly in the rear view mirror to check her make up..not that this will be televised, but…still. She had light brown hair, and had the popular “Rachel” cut made popular by friends. She was 32, average weight, about 5’3’’, and slightly busty. She gets out of the car, and as she walks down the street, she wishes that everyone she passes knew she was doomed to a very difficult fate. Possible torture. Something you wouldn’t expect watching a suburban soccer mom walking down the streets of a city.
She makes her way into the building and through the security checkpoint and up to the floor of the station. She hears the radio show playing throughout the whole office and walks through glass doors to a friendly looking woman at the desk, as soon as she talks, she recognizes her voice as Cynthia, the producer. “Hello, my name is Sally. I am here for the Elmo contest.” Cynthia smiles and hands her a clipboard. “Yes! We’ve been expecting you. We’re so happy that you showed up and didn’t chicken out. I have a daughter too, and if no one showed up, they were going to make me try for the doll the same way you are going to!” “Oh my! All in a day’s work right?” Sally joked feeling slightly at ease. “Well, yeah. I do all kinds of crazy stuff for the show, but I prefer it if it’s the listeners having all the fun. Plus, I don’t really want thousands of strangers to know if I’m ticklish or not. I am by the way. Don’t spread the word” “Your secret is safe with me.” They shared a smile. “Well speaking of which, here are some release forms I need you to sign. This is just a signature that we can use your vocal likeness in future promotions, so you just sign at the bottom, and this one is special for this particular segment. I need you to list all the areas on your body that you are a. ticklish and b. ok with us touching you. If you could give me 3 spots that would work. Please rank them from most ticklish to least.”
Sally filled out what she could, and then stared at lines where she was asked her ticklish spots…She wrote down the ones that were the least severe. Ribs, Sides, Stomach. She pushed the clipboard back to Cynthia who reviewed it, nodded, and then stopped.
“These spots are all sort of in the same area, so can we put torso, for one, and then 2 others? How about your feet? Are they ticklish?
Sally gulped as they were her worst spot, and was purposely avoiding them, she nodded, Cynthia wrote, and then said
“how about your underarms? Is that ok?”
Although that was another “hot spot” for her that she didn’t want to disclose, she was afraid if she didn’t provide 3 spots, she would be disqualified.
“Yes, that’s fine”,.
:“Great! Come with me.”
:She left her desk and led Sally down a few hallways until she say the same lady she saw on the billboard every morning through glass doors talking into a microphone with headphones on. It was really Melissa!...and she was going to be tickling her in a minute. What a strange day. She is led to a seat across the table with her own microphone, handed headphones and greeted by Melissa
“Well, we just had a very special guest walk in, this is Sally and she is our contestant for our tickle me elmo contest! Thank you so much for coming in Sally”
Sally leaned over to the microphone. “Happy to be here, Melissa.”
Melissa gave her a smile of genuine appreciation for making the trip
“So, Sally, I’m sure you’ve been briefed on what the rules of the contest are, would you mind telling our listeners what that is?”
“Sure, um…in order to win the elmo doll, I have to let you tickle me for 5 minutes, and if I tell you stop, I lose?”
“That’s right!, and actually we’ll give you a code word, in case stop comes out on accident…Your code word is…Snuffalufagus! There’s no mistaking that! So tell me, Sally, who is this going to be for”
“Well, Melissa, it’s for my daughter. She just loves Elmo and this would make her Christmas extra special.”
“Well we hope we can help with that. Is this going to be hard? Are you ticklish? Cynthia, I feel like that should have been a prerequisite, otherwise this is all going to be too easy, and we’ll need to have you come in and get tickled!”
“Yes, I am actually. Very much so. So we’ll see how this goes.”
Melissa stood up and took a handheld microphone over to Sally
“Alright Sally. Moment of truth. I have here the 3 approved spots I can go, we are getting the clock set, can you please take off your shoes and put them up on the chair in front of you?”
Sally slipped her feet out of her brown pumps, exposing her white nylon covered foot and nervously put both of them up on the chair. Melissa sat on another chair right in front, looked at the clock and said
“ok, we’re starting in 3….2…1!”
Sally was expecting a playful start, which she didn’t get. Melissa went right in for the kill. She firmly grasped her ankle to keep it from slipping away and started letting her fingers dance along the soles of her feet. Sally’s toes immediately curled, noticing that the slipperiness of the nylons was actually a huge advantage to Melissa, letting her fingers move more easily. Suddenly self conscious of making uncontrolled noises in front of thousands of listeners, she found herself unable to control it and let out wild giggles as she squirmed, trying to escape from Melissa’s tight grip. 10 seconds felt like an eternity as she had no idea how she would make it longer. She buried her face in her hands to prevent her from screaming, and felt her body being ambushed from all sides. 2 hands wiggling in her sides, a finger slipping into her underarm…uncontrolled electricity flew through her body, and she suddenly didn’t care how she sounded or looked. Her face turned red as Melissa was able to find her worst spots quickly. With every laugh, she just thought of her daughter’s face when she got to play with her doll…this 2 minutes of agony was totally worth it, and would make for quite the story for years to come. The tickling was completely relentless, but as she imagined Anne’s face seconds started to fly, and the thought of going through all of this and losing was not an option. Her voice now going horse, and tears filling up her eyes, she sees the clock count down 5. 4. 3. 2 .1 .0. She did it.
A loud buzzer went off and Melissa stopped immediately.
Melissa announced “We have a winner! Sally, you did great! I thought we were gonna get you a few times there. What is your daughter’s name”
Sally tried to catch her breath, took a sip of water
“Anne.” (breathing heavy) “I’m so glad that was over. That was crazy!”
Melissa laughed and pulled out the Elmo doll from under her desk, handing it to her.
“Well you earned this! Enjoy, and happy holidays! Just so the listeners can get a glimpse of what happened, since they couldn’t see, what was the worst part of the 2 minutes?”
:“Well, you found my most ticklish spot immediately, my feet, so I thought I was a goner from the start.”
As music fades in, Melissa wrapped up the segment as Cynthia led her out of the studio
“Well you did it, congrats again, and we will be right back after this!”
She waves to Sally, no time to really chat as Cynthia walked her back out, thanked her again and she walked out into the streets on such a high that she was unable to share with anyone. No one knew her. No one knew what she just did. She drove home much faster than normal, so excited to hide the gift and share the news with her husband. She walks in and no one is home, but there is a note on the counter. “We went to ballet. Cynthia called. They want to give you another challenge.”
The morning was pretty typical. Getting ready, driving Anne to preschool and then off to work. Sally was wearing tan dress pants, a white blouse, a red sweatervest, nylons that were a light color, and brown pumps, a typical business casual outfit. She also was sporting a black peacoat and black leather gloves for the first time that year. Her husband recently was laid off and technically a stay at home dad, so money was tight, especially with Christmas coming up. Dollar signs were running through her head constantly trying to figure out how to get through the holidays, and give her daughter a wonderful Christmas.
Right after Macarena came on, there was an ad for the new and hot “Tickle Me Elmo Doll”. “Oh perfect. Anne has been talking about this non stop, and it’s just a reminder of what I probably can’t afford.” She thought to herself, as if on cue Anne started talking about how much she loved Elmo and hoped Santa would bring it for her. It almost brought tears to her eyes. Just then, the DJ, Melissa comes on the air
“And we’re back. I can’t believe how popular that Tickle Me Elmo Doll is. They are just flying off the shelf! Moms, good luck trying to get one this Christmas.” Sally nodded at this “Well in about an hour, one lucky mom or dad will be going home with a free Tickle Me Elmo if they can accept the challenge I have laid out for them. We’ll be taking calls during the break and we’re looking for number 10! We’ll be right back.” Luckily, just then, she pulled into the school. She wanted to call immediately, but needed to get her daughter in on time. She quickly got her out of her car seat, walked her to the door and gave her a quick hug and goodbye, she jogged back to the car pulls out her car phone and calls the number she has memorized from listening every day..” A female producer answered.
“Hello, WTIW?” she quickly chimed in, her heart racing “Yes, I’m calling about the elmo contest?” “Name please?”
“Sally.”
“Hold, please”
Sally hears a live feed of the show over the phone and hears Melissa comes back from commercial and says
“Ok we’re back and we have our caller 10…Judy?” Sally can hear a woman answer, and is confused as to why she’s still on the phone.
“Yes! Good Morning! I can’t believe I’m on! I never get through!” the lady chirped.
“Yes, now you have to let me know if you’ll accept our challenge, Judy”
“Oh, I’ll do anything for that Elmo doll!”
“Well, we’ll see about that. The winner of the elmo doll needs to…” there is a drum roll “come in the studio today and get tickled for 5 minutes ON AIR without saying stop! Can you do that Judy?”
Sally realizes this may not be worth it, as she would be a goner…There is a pause on the phone. “umm… you…mean like you would tickle me? Like for real? I don’t know if I could handle that for that long. I’m pretty ticklish…I actually think I’m going to have to pass. I just don’t think I’d make it.” “I’m right with you sister.” Sally says to herself. “Oh that’s too bad, sorry about that. How about caller 11….Sally?”
It takes Sally a second to realize it’s her they are talking about “Yes?” she blurts out. “Did you hear what we’re asking of our contestant? Judy wasn’t up for the challenge, do you think you could be?” Due to her level of ticklishness, she knew this would be nearly impossible. “um…” Then she thought of her options, financial troubles, and the image of Anne having the perfect Christmas “Challenge accepted. When do I come in” She blurts out, and immediately takes a deep breath with her eyes closed. *Ding Ding Ding!* “Well did you hear that people? We have a contestant! Can you come in in the next hour Sally?” Having been holding her breath in anxiety, she has to release to answer “Sure can. Looking forward to it.” Melissa chuckles “well ok, Sally. We’ll see you in a bit. Cynthia our producer will give you all the details.” She is cut off and Cynthia takes over the call. “You sound a little shell shocked. Are you ok? You’re off the air now.” Sally tries to snap out of it “yeah…I’m..I’m fine. So wait in order to win, I need to be tickled? For 5 minutes???” Cynthia laughs at the reaction. “yes, that’s the challenge. Ousr address is 234 Washington. Right downtown. We’re on the 12thfloor. Just tell the secrurity person you are coming to the 12th floor and check in with the admin at the desk. I would just make sure you use the restroom before. We’ll have some forms for you to sign, and hopefully you’ll walk out with your Elmo. Sound good?” A bit overwhelmed, Sally replies “Sure. See you then!” She hangs up..not totally sure how she’s going to handle this. She could feel her toes curling in her pumps just thinking about it.
She makes a quick call into work telling them she isn’t feeling well, and may try to come in later, but might miss the whole day. She hangs up and starts her drive into the city. Her stomach is full of butterflies and her heart races the whole way there, many times needing to take deep breaths. She goes in the parking garage and pulls into a spot, looks quickly in the rear view mirror to check her make up..not that this will be televised, but…still. She had light brown hair, and had the popular “Rachel” cut made popular by friends. She was 32, average weight, about 5’3’’, and slightly busty. She gets out of the car, and as she walks down the street, she wishes that everyone she passes knew she was doomed to a very difficult fate. Possible torture. Something you wouldn’t expect watching a suburban soccer mom walking down the streets of a city.
She makes her way into the building and through the security checkpoint and up to the floor of the station. She hears the radio show playing throughout the whole office and walks through glass doors to a friendly looking woman at the desk, as soon as she talks, she recognizes her voice as Cynthia, the producer. “Hello, my name is Sally. I am here for the Elmo contest.” Cynthia smiles and hands her a clipboard. “Yes! We’ve been expecting you. We’re so happy that you showed up and didn’t chicken out. I have a daughter too, and if no one showed up, they were going to make me try for the doll the same way you are going to!” “Oh my! All in a day’s work right?” Sally joked feeling slightly at ease. “Well, yeah. I do all kinds of crazy stuff for the show, but I prefer it if it’s the listeners having all the fun. Plus, I don’t really want thousands of strangers to know if I’m ticklish or not. I am by the way. Don’t spread the word” “Your secret is safe with me.” They shared a smile. “Well speaking of which, here are some release forms I need you to sign. This is just a signature that we can use your vocal likeness in future promotions, so you just sign at the bottom, and this one is special for this particular segment. I need you to list all the areas on your body that you are a. ticklish and b. ok with us touching you. If you could give me 3 spots that would work. Please rank them from most ticklish to least.”
Sally filled out what she could, and then stared at lines where she was asked her ticklish spots…She wrote down the ones that were the least severe. Ribs, Sides, Stomach. She pushed the clipboard back to Cynthia who reviewed it, nodded, and then stopped.
“These spots are all sort of in the same area, so can we put torso, for one, and then 2 others? How about your feet? Are they ticklish?
Sally gulped as they were her worst spot, and was purposely avoiding them, she nodded, Cynthia wrote, and then said
“how about your underarms? Is that ok?”
Although that was another “hot spot” for her that she didn’t want to disclose, she was afraid if she didn’t provide 3 spots, she would be disqualified.
“Yes, that’s fine”,.
:“Great! Come with me.”
:She left her desk and led Sally down a few hallways until she say the same lady she saw on the billboard every morning through glass doors talking into a microphone with headphones on. It was really Melissa!...and she was going to be tickling her in a minute. What a strange day. She is led to a seat across the table with her own microphone, handed headphones and greeted by Melissa
“Well, we just had a very special guest walk in, this is Sally and she is our contestant for our tickle me elmo contest! Thank you so much for coming in Sally”
Sally leaned over to the microphone. “Happy to be here, Melissa.”
Melissa gave her a smile of genuine appreciation for making the trip
“So, Sally, I’m sure you’ve been briefed on what the rules of the contest are, would you mind telling our listeners what that is?”
“Sure, um…in order to win the elmo doll, I have to let you tickle me for 5 minutes, and if I tell you stop, I lose?”
“That’s right!, and actually we’ll give you a code word, in case stop comes out on accident…Your code word is…Snuffalufagus! There’s no mistaking that! So tell me, Sally, who is this going to be for”
“Well, Melissa, it’s for my daughter. She just loves Elmo and this would make her Christmas extra special.”
“Well we hope we can help with that. Is this going to be hard? Are you ticklish? Cynthia, I feel like that should have been a prerequisite, otherwise this is all going to be too easy, and we’ll need to have you come in and get tickled!”
“Yes, I am actually. Very much so. So we’ll see how this goes.”
Melissa stood up and took a handheld microphone over to Sally
“Alright Sally. Moment of truth. I have here the 3 approved spots I can go, we are getting the clock set, can you please take off your shoes and put them up on the chair in front of you?”
Sally slipped her feet out of her brown pumps, exposing her white nylon covered foot and nervously put both of them up on the chair. Melissa sat on another chair right in front, looked at the clock and said
“ok, we’re starting in 3….2…1!”
Sally was expecting a playful start, which she didn’t get. Melissa went right in for the kill. She firmly grasped her ankle to keep it from slipping away and started letting her fingers dance along the soles of her feet. Sally’s toes immediately curled, noticing that the slipperiness of the nylons was actually a huge advantage to Melissa, letting her fingers move more easily. Suddenly self conscious of making uncontrolled noises in front of thousands of listeners, she found herself unable to control it and let out wild giggles as she squirmed, trying to escape from Melissa’s tight grip. 10 seconds felt like an eternity as she had no idea how she would make it longer. She buried her face in her hands to prevent her from screaming, and felt her body being ambushed from all sides. 2 hands wiggling in her sides, a finger slipping into her underarm…uncontrolled electricity flew through her body, and she suddenly didn’t care how she sounded or looked. Her face turned red as Melissa was able to find her worst spots quickly. With every laugh, she just thought of her daughter’s face when she got to play with her doll…this 2 minutes of agony was totally worth it, and would make for quite the story for years to come. The tickling was completely relentless, but as she imagined Anne’s face seconds started to fly, and the thought of going through all of this and losing was not an option. Her voice now going horse, and tears filling up her eyes, she sees the clock count down 5. 4. 3. 2 .1 .0. She did it.
A loud buzzer went off and Melissa stopped immediately.
Melissa announced “We have a winner! Sally, you did great! I thought we were gonna get you a few times there. What is your daughter’s name”
Sally tried to catch her breath, took a sip of water
“Anne.” (breathing heavy) “I’m so glad that was over. That was crazy!”
Melissa laughed and pulled out the Elmo doll from under her desk, handing it to her.
“Well you earned this! Enjoy, and happy holidays! Just so the listeners can get a glimpse of what happened, since they couldn’t see, what was the worst part of the 2 minutes?”
:“Well, you found my most ticklish spot immediately, my feet, so I thought I was a goner from the start.”
As music fades in, Melissa wrapped up the segment as Cynthia led her out of the studio
“Well you did it, congrats again, and we will be right back after this!”
She waves to Sally, no time to really chat as Cynthia walked her back out, thanked her again and she walked out into the streets on such a high that she was unable to share with anyone. No one knew her. No one knew what she just did. She drove home much faster than normal, so excited to hide the gift and share the news with her husband. She walks in and no one is home, but there is a note on the counter. “We went to ballet. Cynthia called. They want to give you another challenge.”
