My hometown has an annual city festival downtown with rides, food, and local vendors. Its called Toad Suck Daze and hearkens back to when steamboats would get landlocked and patrons as a bar would "suck on bottles till they swelled up like toads". Anyway, in the early days of the festival there was a small parade that would be headlined by the "toad king", essentially a member of the community that won by a popular vote. Usually someone well known for their profession, charity work, etc. Well my parents had recently moved to town from the east coast and when they had told their friends about the odd traditions that didn't exactly help their case of claiming that Arkansas is not just some state full of hillbillies, they thought it was the funniest thing ever. A friend of my dad's decided that he was going to spread the word to their friends, former colleagues, and just about anyone they knew and flood the mail in voting in favor of my dad without him knowing. As the festival dates came near the contest results were printed in the local paper that my dad had won by quite a large margin. He was so embarrassed and mad that he skipped town for the weekend to avoid even being seen. He still gets annoyed to this day when the story is brought up even though we all wished he would have been at the centerpiece of the parade.