Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Playing the Odds
My son has a new fascination - sweepstakes. Matty was drinking something the other day that had a picture of Indiana Jones on it, so of course Bennett had to take a look. He started reading the can and got all excited and explained to us that we could win a bunch of prizes. Ah...youth. So young and hopeful, not yet discouraged by reality and honestly believing in the chance of winning. We tried to explain to Bennett about the odds of winning prizes but he is ever the optimist and insisted that we at least try. Since then he has discovered how many things in our house have prizes listed on them that you can win. I am so glad that he can read. What ever happened to the days of instant winners? Now you have to go online and punch in a special code before you can be told that you are a loser. I remember as a kid watching the Publishers Clearing House commercials and truly believing that my family would win. And I remember once that Pepsi did a game where once you drank your Pepsi you would find a letter at the bottom of the can and if you collected the letters to spell "Pepsi" you would win. My dad kept the cans lined up in the garage waiting for the winning can, I guess I know where Bennett gets it. Although I must confess that I do tend to frequent McDonald's more often when they are doing the Monopoly game. I suppose that there is a little something in all of us that believes that someday it will be us, we will win the prize or be the millionth customer. I guess it is not a bad thing, as long as it doesn't become all-consuming. Someone has to win, right?
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2 comments:
I think it is fun. During the winter Olympics Coke had a deal if you punched the code in it would tell you what event you had a stake in. Then if the US won a medal in the event - you won a 2 liter. I punched all my codes in and we won 125 (2) liters!!!
I have won a couple of $50 gift cards on other instant wins punching those codes in, but it is a total joke most of the time.
I actually know two people who won the Publishers Clearing House sweepstakes! My aunt won a million dollar award from them back in the early 1990's. Really cool as they showed up with the van and the Big Check and she was on TV all over the area. She retired and is now living in Florida on the Gulf (still waiting for my cut!). Then two years ago, someone in my town who works with Boss' son won a prize of $10,000 from them. No big event for this one but still she went out and bought a whole new family room set up and was on TV for a home repair feature. Pretty cool. So I guess you can really win!
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