The hams didn’t stand a chance

By ANDREW MCGINN
a.mcginn@beeherald.com

When civilization one day falls apart and mass looting ensues, you’d do well to make fast friends with Tammy Smith.

Of course, a cardiologist might disagree.

The Jefferson resident on Saturday morning got two minutes to grab pretty much anything she wanted off the shelves at Fareway, and did an astonishing $1,090.16 in damage in just 120 seconds.

The cured meat, frankly, didn’t stand a chance.
Ham after ham after ham sailed into her cart, followed in short order by bacon, brats, cocktail wieners, ribs and more.

The two-minute shopping spree — truthfully, it was less spree and more blitzkrieg — was Smith’s prize after her name was drawn from more than 4,500 entries by Our Iowa magazine in its Iowa Treasure Hunt contest.

As he waited for Smith to arrive, Managing Editor Larry Wiebel was blissfully unaware of the grocery tab his magazine would soon face.

“We want her to do well,” Wiebel professed beforehand. “If it’s $250, it’s fine. If it’s $400, it’s fine. We can’t control what she puts in there.”

An earlier winner in the same contest — a reader in eastern Iowa — won a $100 delivery from Schwan’s for three straight months, a total prize value of $300.

Smith, however, came to destroy.

“I’m going straight down to the meat,” Smith, 55, declared.

When she slipped on the kind of gloves that Hines Ward wore to catch the game-winning touchdown of Super Bowl XL, it was obvious she meant business.

“I want one with a sticky wheel,” Wiebel playfully blurted when Smith picked out her shopping cart.

That was at 7:30 a.m.

By 7:32, Our Iowa was facing a $1,090.16 bill from the Jefferson Fareway.

“Look how many hams I got,” Smith exclaimed.

Smith, who works at Shadran, is now in the running to win a $20,000 Extreme Kitchen Makeover from Our Iowa in early 2015.
Her supply of bacon should hold out well past then.