Meeting Porch · The Gram Files · Story One · Snot Nose Pig Patrol
The Great Christmas Tree Raffle Mystery
Every December, the town raffles off Christmas trees for good causes. And every December, one woman in Uniontown keeps winning them. The Patrol smelled a system. The Patrol was wrong about almost everything, as usual.
Every patrol has a case that starts as a statistic and ends as a legend. This one starts with a number the Patrol could not get past: four.
Four is how many times Gram has won a Christmas tree at the mall’s cancer-fundraiser raffle — out of seven years of trying. Four trees. Seven Decembers. Blue did the math on a napkin, twice, and then sat down quietly, because the math said what the math said: either the raffle is broken, or Gram is.
The Patrol opened an investigation. Red wore a trench coat. It was December. Nobody questioned it.
Exhibit A: The angel tree
Her December 15 report was cheerful and, to a trained investigator, deeply suspicious. She had won again — and not just any tree. An angel tree, which she pronounced the most beautiful tree there. She also did what she does every year: she praised the organizers by name for how hard they work, which the Patrol notes is a strange thing for a raffle mastermind to bother with.
From the field report
Gram donates to the fundraiser every year, winner or not. The Patrol has reviewed the evidence and wishes to state, for the record, that “keeps showing up for a good cause” is not yet a crime in Pennsylvania.
Yellow’s theory was that Gram whispers to the ticket drum. Blue’s theory was that the drum whispers back. Rainbow took notes on both theories in the same column, labeled Unhelpful.
Then she won a second tree. The same week.
Two days later came the dispatch that broke the Patrol’s model completely. More presents had arrived — including another tree, this one from a tree raffle run by the Uniontown hospital. Two raffles. Two trees. One week. One Gram.
And folded into the same happy report was the present the Patrol had to stop and sit down for: a beautiful throw from Shanna, printed with Gram’s two kitties — the ones now in kitty heaven. Even mid-investigation, the Patrol files some things under Not Evidence, Just Love. That throw went in that file. It may be the fullest file the Patrol owns.
Gram, meanwhile, was already doing the most Gram math there is: counting her trees, counting her rooms, and announcing that next year she might have to start donating trees back, if family and friends didn’t want them. The suspect was giving away the evidence. Voluntarily. With a smile.
The Patrol’s official verdict
System: none found. The Patrol searched for a trick and found a routine instead — donate every year, show up every year, cheer for the organizers every year, and let the drum do what the drum does. Four wins in seven years, plus a bonus hospital tree, turns out to be what luck looks like when it knows somebody’s address.
Gram is hereby awarded the Golden Snout for Luckiest Regular in Fayette County. The ticket drum has been released without charges and a stern warning.
More in Gram’s file
- The Christmas visit (December 25, 2024): Dennis and Carol came by for Christmas — logged by the Patrol under “the house is full again, as it should be.”
- The snowman detail (January 3, 2025): Andrew and Geraldine came to Uniontown specifically to build a snowman, and brought the girls. The Patrol respects a mission with clear objectives.
- The standing invitation: Ed and Antoinette visit whenever they’re in town, and Gram’s report says the family enjoys them every single time. Some files the Patrol just keeps warm.
Story notes: Built from Angie Klippi’s Facebook posts — December 15 and 17, 2024 for the raffle trees and the kitty throw, with the extras from December 25, 2024 and January 3, 2025. The wins, the four-in-seven-years record, the angel tree, the hospital raffle, and the plan to donate trees back are as she reported them. The investigation, the trench coat, and the verdict are the Patrol’s invention, as usual.