txdon said:
AAAHHHHHHHHHH!
This thread brings back a very bad memory.
I got the "Z" in the Taco Bell Godzilla contest which meant I WIN ONE MILLION DOLLARS.
However (the bad memory) I left it on the table at Taco Bell in Giddings Texas and did not realize what I had just given away until I read the small print a few days later and saw the astronomical odds that there were on getting the "Z". I Really considered taking off work and try to trace the "Z" to the landfill area but then considered my odds at finding it again would be even higher.
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHGGGGGGGGGGGG!
Don,
Your post is the most memorable one in the thread. Last Christmas I won a Slingbox and it has changed my life. My daughter installed it at at her house this spring after she had purchased a new computer, and now I lay down in Provence on the sofa in front of the fireplace that is burning olive wood from our spring prunning and watch live American TV or else shows that I record on a seperate DVR box which she got me for Mothers Day. I LOVE the Slingbox.
My son was in 7th grade and he was saving up to buy a pet bird and the local channel 12 tv station hired a new weather forcaster so they ran a 5 degree guarantee contest. You send in a post card and if his forecast was off by more than 5 degrees they drew out a psot card and the sender won $112. My son kept begging me to send in a psot card, he was trying everything to rais money for that bird, and on the way to school in the morning he begged me to send in a post card, and he gave me the address he had written down from the show. Well jsut to get him off my back I stopped 2 blocks away at Walgreens, bought the psot card, drove across the street to the mailbox and mailed the card. If you can beleive the mail service, the very next day he won! The card had to have arrived at the tv station the next day and as luck would have it the day before, the day I mailed it, his forecast was off. My son was thrilled when he saw that I won the $112. I had ot put it in my name do to age restrictions on the contest. I'll never forget that contest "The 5 degree Guarantee"
I would always play the lotterry but only wehn it was really huge, like it was in the news, that it rolled over and was huge. I would spend $20 and buy $5 worth of tickets for our 2 children and my hsuband and myself. And I wrote the names on the tickets in ink jsut so I would not be tempted
I remember so many good conversations with my young son about what i would do with the money if I won. Our oldest, my daughter has sevear asthema so we never ahd any pets. My son just loved animals and always wanted pets (he was allowed to get a pet when his sisster went to college and he picked a parrot as his choice) so I would tell him that we would build a new house then I would build a seprate house in our back yard just for his new pets which he would now be allowd to get. That was always my dream to be able to let him have pets, to build a little full cottagge jsut for pets for him. I have worm memories of lottery winning conversations with my son. But I think I did it right, I wasn't into it every day. Oh every 2 years or so I woudl play in the mega mega lotteries so I was not encouraging bad behavior. My husband was always working nights and my daughter was always in bed early so it would be my son and myself watching the news for the lottery drawing together and sharing our dreams while we waited for the drawing. It's funny how I remember that because of this topic. That little boy is now 26 and jsut got his first professional job and we are so happy and proud of him. He served in the Peace Corps in Guinea west Africa for jsut over 2 years and 6 weeks ago he got a really good Job with the Peace Corps HQ in Washington D.C. He is the Assistant Country Desk Director for 3 counties in western Africa. He moved into an apartment in DC last Saturday so we ahve been thinking of him a lot more than normal lately. Before this he was selling health insurance to small businesses while he worked to get a professional job in his field.
He sure was persistant about me sending in that post card on the 5 degree guarantee, but I am not so sure it really was a random drawing as I had written on the top of the psot card in big Letters "PLEASE PICK THIS CARD" and then briefly said how the $112 would go to my son who was saving up to buy his first pet....
