WORKING MOM "ULTIMATE BREAK" SWEEPS

Here’s one that all moms can appreciate: a six-night, all-inclusive package at the Palladium Grand Resort and Spa in the Riviera Maya, for four, along Mexico’s Caribbean coast. Ah, can’t you feel yourself decompressing at the thought of it? By all moms, I mean moms who are 1.) working out of the home; 2.) working from the home; 3.) not working out of or from the home; 4.) not exactly moms because they, um, minor detail, don’t have children.

You see, MSNBC might be billing this as a “Working Mom’s Sweepstakes,” complete with a semiotician’s showcase of working-mom symbols: laptop, cell phone, teddy bear, baby bottle (subliminal mommy-war message: because working mom’s don’t breastfeed, or if they do, they stop sooner than the American Academy of Pediatrics wants them to!) and the lexicon of anxiety that comes with the territory: what’s for dinner, meetings, schedules, deadlines, appointments, laundry. But as I understand the Official Rules, any resident of the U.S. of A. and their mother can enter this Working Mom Sweeps. So could their father, for that matter.

My intuitive, laywoman, non-expert take on this is that while sweeps can market to a select demographic, they cannot limit entries on the basis of gender, marital status, ethnicity, religious affiliation and, in this case, parental bona fides, never mind work credentials. Bottom line: You can up your odds and get the men in your frazzled world to enter, too. And any toiling U.S. citizen, age 18 and older, can click and enter.

You can enter this one once a day until it closes, so if you’re interested, you might as well bookmark the darn thing and do just that. (I’m doing that with two others rights now.) As for the resort, it’s part of the Fiesta Hotel Group, an Ibiza-based concern. The property looks sprawling and, with classical columns encircling the hot tub, a concrete (literally) reminder of the Roman Empire parallel thing, even though the décor is supposed to be Spanish colonial. The package is all inclusive, which can start to feel like a cruise on terra firma if you’re not careful and don't get off the grounds. But what the hey. Go for it.

FWIW: I found this one at four in the morning after the cat woke me up meowing to be fed. I went to check my email and the overnight news and then, before you know it, I was surfing for the latest on Brangelina. MSNBC was running an ad for this sweeps next to an archived article about Angelina Jolie, a working mother who knows how to work it if there ever was one. (I think Brad looks miserable, by the way.)

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6-NIGHT ANYBODY AND THEIR MOTHER GETAWAY TO MEXICO MAYA RIVIERA

DEADLINE: April 30, 2006
TO ENTER, CLICK HERE.
SPONSOR: Microsoft, MSNBC, Kia.
THE DIGS: Palladium Grand Resort and Spa in the Riviera Maya
THE INELIGIBLES: See above.
ARV (APPROXIMATE RETAIL VALUE): $5,000
MY PERSONAL ENTRY: April 5, 2006
THE FINE PRINT: Enter daily!
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