The Mystery Prize

I'm a fan of shopping for big-ticket items. I really enjoy looking at items such as furniture, TVs and cars. (It should be noted that I did not saying buying big-ticket items, just shopping for them. Buying costs money, which is not nearly as much fun as only purchasing the items in your mind as that does not alter your bank account.) Even if someone else is going to look at stuff like this, I am always more than happy to tag along and do some window-shopping of my own. The only drawbacks is that I have somehow ended up on people's radars as a big-item shopper. This is probably why, even though I just bought a new car a few years ago and I am currently not in the market for another one, I got a mailing last week for a large sales event at a local dealership.

Inside the mailing was a scratch ticket. When I scratched the ticket off I was met with three identical symbols, which means I won something. I re-checked and then triple-checked the pictures to make sure they really were identical and sure enough, they were. Immediately, this made me skeptical. Those of you who know my history when it comes to this kind of thing knows I have terrible luck with scratch tickets. Giving me scratch tickets for my birthday is the same as giving me nothing, because I never win (appreciate the thought, though). So the fact that I won on a scratch ticket which arrived through the mail from some contest I don't remember signing up for was highly suspicious.

My concerns were verified when I read down to the legal-speak on the bottom of the page. Turns out odds of winning the grand prize was 1 in 13,300, which were the identical odds of winning the second, third and fourth-place prizes. Odds of winning one of the remaining 'Jackpot' prizes was 13,296 out of 13,300. Basically, everyone won something and most of the time it was the jackpot. So I won, but I didn't really win and therefore I planned to ignore the mailing and go about my life... However, the unknown factor was getting to me. I mean I wasn't positive I only won the jackpot prize. And even if I had only won the jackpot, that still carried a value of $49-$299. That covers a lot of ground. I mean, it could be anything.

Thus this afternoon my curiosity got the better of me and I drove to the dealership to claim my prize. Immediately I was swarmed by one guy who couldn't have been more of a car salesman stereotype if he had been trying. (Though, to avoid painting all car salesmen with a broad brush, it turned out it was also a Lakers fan, which could have been throwing my douche-bag meter off. As a die-hard Celtic fan I can always tell when a Lakers fan is nearby as my Spider-sense begins to tingle and I go on the defensive.) After taking my basic info about the car I was currently driving, he started to launch into the sales pitch about upgrading to a new Challenger. "It'll blow your socks off," he told me. "So will the payments," I replied. [Sidebar: I will say this, the new Dodge Challenger may have replaced the Escalade as the car I will buy if I ever win the lottery. Those things are amazing.]

Once he realised I am perfectly happy with my current car he sort of lost all interest in me. I almost felt bad for the guy because he's probably dealt with a bunch of people like me who only want to know if they won a new TV and have no intention of buying a new vehicle. That has to be frustrating as hell. But at least I was upfront about not wanting a new car, so he didn't have to waste 20 minutes of his life trying to sell me on something I was never going to buy.

Finally it was time to find out what I had won. Not surprisingly, I had won the prize that the other 13,296 people won, which turned out to be a free oil change and service inspection. Frankly, that was more than I expected. I was ready for it to be $49-$299 dollars worth of "dealership dollars" or some other such thing that wouldn't actually do me any good. With my curiosity satisfied I was able to leave with only a minimal attempt at trying to get me to change my mind about the Challenger. In the end I figure I got a sweet deal: I didn't have to sit through a long-winded sales-pitch and I got a free oil change out of the deal. Maybe my luck is starting to change when it comes to scratch tickets.