Are you in the Dime Zone?

Speaking of dimes, have I told you about the dime zone?

I can’t believe I haven’t mentioned this yet. It’s such a mainstay in my Writinggal jargon. When you say that you’re “in the dime zone” it means that good things are happening to you that you didn’t expect. Basically, you’re lucky.

Thea and I started saying it back in 1997. We were in college and one night when we went out, we had all these good things happen to us like we found money on the ground, we got free parking, some place that always had a cover didn’t…stuff like that. Now I’m not sure who said it first but one of us suddenly exclaimed, “You know what? We’re in the dime zone!” The phrase swept the sorority house and we’ve been saying it ever since.

We got it from a Sprint ad. I couldn’t remember exactly how the ad went so I looked it up and here’s a description:

In the first of the spots, a commuter in his car finds a dime. "I'm heading home from work, and suddenly I'm in the dime zone," he says picking up the dime. When he arrives home, the neighbors' noisy dogs stop barking and stay off his lawn. Leaves blowing from a tree skip over his yard and land in another. We cut to the commuter lying on a diving board at his pool. "Best of all, my calls are just 10 cents a minute. Every evening and all weekend."

As you can expect, some people abused the phrase. Like a girl would get into medical school and say, “I’m in the dime zone!” Or someone would get a marriage proposal and announce, “I’m so lucky in love! I must be in the dime zone.”

No, no no. When really big things happen to you—that’s not the dime zone! It has to be small, unexpected things usually involving getting free stuff that you didn’t expect. Example:

“I won $15,000 playing Black Jack in Vegas!” Not the dime zone.

“While eating at Denny’s in Vegas my waitress accidentally brought me two plates of hash browns and didn’t charge me for the second. Then I went outside and even though my meter was expired, someone had fed it for me. When I went to the pool, this great chair in this perfect spot just came available and I got it.” You’re in the dime zone! It really should be a series of little things.

Sometimes we would reverse it. If things were going bad we would say “I’m in international rates.”

And even now, almost ten years later, when long-distance-rates have gone the way of little neck scarves, we still use it. Last week Thea called and said, “I saved money on my text books by buying them used on Amazon…and then my office had free Chipotle for lunch…and then I got free Kelly Clarkson tickets. I’m so in the dime zone!”

I don’t know, Thea. Getting Kelly Clarkson tickets is pretty huge so that may be borderline better than the dime zone. But since they were lawn seats, we’ll let it count.

Feel free to use it in your daily speak. Got a front row parking spot? Dime zone. The last pair of shoes and they happen to be your size? Dime Zone. Bought something on sale and when you got to the register it was even MORE on sale? Double dime zone.

Won the lottery? Nope. Tricked ya.

BUT if you offer to pay for my blog party because you won the lottery, well then we'd all be in the dime zone.