I’m not very lucky when it comes to random drawings, and lotteries, and that sort of thing. But some people seem to have been conceived under a lucky star. A guy at my job, for instance, is always winning substantial amounts of money — including a hundred grand from a scratch-off lottery ticket.
One hundred thousand dollars!
I play the Powerball whenever I think about it (you can’t win if you’re not in), but it’s inconsistent at best. When I do play, it’s never for more than three dollars. Usually it’s two.
And I think I won seven dollars once. That was my big lottery score to date, and it happened many years ago. Almost always, I get no correct numbers. Not a single one. And I think there should be a small prize for that accomplishment. Ya know?
In my whole life, the biggest prize I’ve ever won was a 105-second “record run” at Budget Tapes & Records, in Charleston (Kanawha City), WV.
Apparently I’d entered the contest by scribbling my name and telephone number on a slip of paper, and stuffing it into a box inside the store. Afterward I didn’t even remember doing it. But whatever.
I was working at the Dunbar Toll Bridge at the time, and was listening to a rock radio station there one night: FM105. Between a Journey rock-block and something by George “Thoroughly-good” the owner of Budget was brought into the studio.
The DJ said they were going to draw a name at random, from all entrants, and that person would get to run around the record store for 105 seconds, and gather as many albums as they could get their booger-hooks on.
I wasn’t really paying close attention, until I heard one of them say, “And the winner is… Jeff Kay of Dunbar!” I nearly dropped a plate.
I had 105 seconds (always with the 105) to call and claim my prize, and I did. They put me on the air, and both were snickering when I told them I was calling from the Dunbar Toll Bridge. What the hell, man?
After I hung up, some guy drove up to my boof, said, “Hey, I just heard you on the radio, faggot!” and flung a quarter past my left eye. Yes, the community support was already starting to emerge…
On the day of the “run” there were dozens of spectators there (including the Evil Twin!), as well as news media. Someone was filming it for one of the TV news stations, and little beads of sweat were rolling down the middle of my back.
They had all sorts of rules and regulations, designed to cramp your style, but I ended up with 96 albums that I could keep. At least that many were taken away, because of the rules. For instance, I could only have up to three albums by any one artist. So, if I grabbed the whole Rolling Stones section, they’d take away all but three. That kind of thing…
But the owner of the store was cool, and told me I could take whatever I wanted from the 96. And if there were some I didn’t care for, he’d just let me trade ’em. Pretty sweet, huh?
My brother had his big $700 water-driven VCR by that point, and he recorded the 11 o’clock news — hoping I’d make an appearance. They did a short piece on the record run, and I was shown bouncing around the store, on sped-up film. While this was happening, some kind of Charlie Chaplin music was playing, and I looked like a complete and utter douche.
And this doesn’t really have anything to do with today’s topic, but one of the other stories from that night’s news was a report on a mine disaster, in Kentucky (I think).
During it, an obese woman was shown in profile, and she suddenly started screaming, “Noooo! NOOOOO!!” and fell backwards out of the frame. Then, and this was the best part, her cigarette flew up, did two rotations in the middle of the screen, and disappeared.
My brother and I kept rewinding the tape, and watching that scene over and over. We couldn’t stop laughing, and our mother just shook her head in deep, deep disappointment. Heh.
Supposedly he still has all his tapes from those days, and it would be the biggest prize of all, if he could unearth that record run news broadcast.
Anyway, have you ever won a significant prize of some sort? Tell us about it, won’t you? And if you haven’t been lucky yourself, do you know someone who won a car, or a big lottery jackpot, or appeared on a game show, or that kind of thing? We need to know.
And I’m going to go to work now — another strange night, my friends.
See ya tomorrow!
Oh yeah! First!
I must admit I’m only slightly embarrassed to be excited about this….
Rat farts !!
I will donate $50 if you come up with that video.
Third? wow
Top ten?
or not………. The only thing I’ve ever won is a turkey the size of a Purdue Roaster Chicken.
I may have won a race between Washington Avenue and McKinley Street back in the 70’s driving a 1965 Volkswagen, but the memory is a bit fuzzy.
I once won first prize in a Kellogg’s Cornflakes competition.
I’ll get back to you tomorrow after I win 266 million tonight!
ocho
Put me in for $20 for the video.
I was quite surprised when I read “the biggest prize I’ve ever won was a 105-minute record run” — wow, 105 minutes! That’s enough time to clear the whole store out, and open up your own store out in the parking lot. Then Jeff corrected himself a few paragraphs later: “that person would get to run around the record store for 105 seconds.” Makes more sense.
96 albums is a nice haul? Did you focus on the Hall and Oats section of the store?
Biggest thing I can remember winning was a free Subway sandwich by being the next caller on the local college radio station. No biggie.
Craziest thing I remember SEEING was a guy winning a pick-up truck at one of the college basketball games. This was a half-time competition, and the guy had to make three shots to win the truck: one from the free-throw line, one from half court, and one from the opposite free-throw line. Everyone damn near shat themselves when the guy hit the half-court shot, so imagine the surprise when he made the shot from the far free-throw line!
Oh yeah.. my comment.. Was so excited about being first that I almost forgot why I was commenting!
I’m not particuarily lucky. I’ve won a couple of drawings but nothing significant. I did win 4 tickets to the Brickhouse 500 in Indianapolis a few years back. I’d registered on some random thing online. I got the notice that I won about a week before the race and had to have it notarized and sent back before they’d send me the tickets. I got them the day before the race and I lived in Missouri. Didn’t even have time to sell them on Ebay! Wotta rip..
My Mom was incredibly lucky. She would walk into a casino, put five bucks in a slot machine and walk out with 10 grand. I’d say it was some sort of fluke, but it happened more than once! She was always winning something!
I knew a guy who went in with a friend on one of those “exotic” horse-race bets, like a trifecta or whatever, and they ended up winning $100,000 (this was about 25 years ago). But for some reason the track wouldn’t redeem the ticket right away, and told them they had to come back the next day to claim their winnings. But that night, after hours of celebratory beer-drinking, they drove around a parking lot, each in his own car, passing the winning ticket from one car to the other (I can imagine lots of whooping and horn-honking) and, you guessed it, they dropped the ticket and it flew away in the wind. They searched that parking lot for hours and hours, but never did find it. Eventually they brought a lawsuit against the race-track, saying that because they had informed the track that they had the winning ticket, the track should honor it even though they lost it. I think they eventually settled with the track for an amount less than $100K, though I don’t know for how much.
I haven’t won anything substantial yet, but it’s funny you mentioned this. My boss and a couple coworkers are throwing down $20 each to enter the big lottery out here in CA ($266 million) & we are already bright-eyed, using our imaginations to spend it quickly. Oh, the ideas…..
I will say though that the biggest burn was SEEING someone win $5,000 at a slot machine right after my boyfriend was using it.
We were in Indio, CA at an Indian Casino (can I say Indian?) & I was playing a nickel slot. My boyfriend was bored so he went to a nearby row of empty dollar slot machines and plopped $20 in. He was just blindly hitting the ‘Bet Max’ & his $20 was quickly spent. The whole time he was playing this weird, smelly guy was standing RIGHT behind him, making him kinda nervous. Mind you, there were about 15 other slots all around him, some that were the same as what my boyfriend was on, but this guy was wanting THAT machine. Once his $20 was up, my boyfriend stood up & came to me saying ‘WTF is up with that guy?’. Well, the guy slipped his $20 in, hit ‘Bet Max’ and instantly won $5,000. I couldn’t believe it. My boyfriend was just slack-jawed staring for about 5 minutes while employees came over to give the guy his winning ticket (for some reason it won’t spit the tickets out for more than $1,000) & finally my boyfriend turned to me & simply said, ‘let’s go, I need to get the fuck outta here’. He was so pissed! To this day he swears the guy had some sort of chip or something that makes him win right after someone else uses a machine. There really was no reason why the guy had to use that specific machine when, again, there were like 15 all around. Weird….
Sorry Melissa, I bought the winning ticket a couple of hours ago.
When I was 8, I won $2 playing Bingo. I’ve also won a few bucks here and thereon Lotto – the most being about $140.
Some smug prick who rented an office from us came in one day to tell everyone he had won an Audi at some hoity toity country club he belonged to. Nobody congratulated him. He already drove a Lexus.
Jeff, you HAVE to find that tape. You just have to. I couldn’t breathe reading your description – a visual may put me in a rubber room for a spell.
Never won nuthin’. Stupid dark star!
But this reminds me, did anyone watch the Kentucky Derby and witness that schlub win $900,00 off of earnings that he won in a contest, no less? I hope the first thing he bought was a new rug, because that Dollar Emporium toupee he was sporting probably was made outta horse hair, ironically. But maybe that’s just my sour grapes talking.
I won 80 buckaroos from a scratch-off! I feel like I’m due for the big win now. I think WV’s lotto is up to $47million. You guys can fight over the $266 mil and I’ll be happy happy happy with WV’s payout.
Good Afternoon Surf Reporters…..
I’ve won one radio station call in contest, a trivia question; In the Lone Ranger series, Tonto called the Lone Ranger “Kemosabe”. What does “Kemosabe” really mean?
Thanks to the wonders of the internet and a neat little search engine called “Google”, I was able to look it up and call in quickly. And my prize? 2 tickets to an off Broadway production of the Wizard of Oz. Yeah, I was thrilled.
I’ve won nice little amounts playing scratch off tickets, but never enough to recoup the amount I’ve, ahem, invested. 200 bucks here, 150 there. About a month ago or so, I hit the biggest dollar amount I’ve ever won, that was $500 from a 10 dollar ticket.
And if true gambling proceeds can be counted, I’ve won several poker tournaments on line at Poker Stars.net. 3 times I’ve come in 1st place in a 180 player tourney. $12 was the buy in and first place was $594.
Oh, the Kemosabe answer… supposedly it means “soggy bush”.
Hit a scratch-off for $200 last year and I hit the Cash5 for amounts from $1 to $50, just can’t seem to get that big payoff. But in June, I get the big payoff on my education gamble, a BS degree in information systems security administration and the pleasure of touting three honor societies for carrying a 4.0 GPA.
When I was in high school I won tickets to see The Tubes on their Love Bomb tour. Utopia opened and I got a copy of Love Bomb on vinyl.
I am truly blessed.
Thanks God!
Congrats, Shiny Rod!
Back before Saturn had rings and EVERYONE had rotary phones my sisters would sit by the radio and wait for the radio call-in contest of the week. The trick was to dial all but the last number…even to the point of dialing the last number but holding it against the little stop thingie that kept the dial from going too far, then letting it go when you heard the question. They were very good at it…the damn place was full of pen and pencil sets, Zippo lighters and clock radios.
The only thing I have ever won was a 5 gallon bucket stuffed with Mother’s brand auto waxes and polishes worth about a hundred bucks.
I always thought that kemosabe meant ‘white trash’.
My sister just competed on Jeopardy the other day – she won $2,000 (second place). She came SO close to winning. It was heartbreaking!
That record store sweep would be You Tube gold! 🙂
Oh, and about my sister on Jeopardy… she reports that Trebek is as slick in real life as he is on TV. And that security there is so tight, there are people following you around to make sure you don’t cheat/take pictures/whatever. The only pictures she got were of the outside of the studio and a dressing room. Seriously!
Shiny – Congratulations on your accomplishment.
Ginger – awesome to have a sister on Jeopardy. It’s the only game show I truly enjoy.
I’ve won several contests, and most of the prizes were music-related.
Back in the 80s, one of our local TV channels showed a short segment that consisted of bits and pieces of various popular music videos (kind of like the end of “Remote Control”, if you remember that game show). You had to name all of the songs and the artists in the videos. I won first prize, which was two tickets to see Rick Springfield at the Spectrum in Philly. I went for the opening band, Sparks, and left before Rick even hit the stage.
When the Disney Channel used to show programs for adults, they once had a Beatles month when they showed all kinds of Beatles-related programming. I sent in several postcards, and won some sort of “limited edition” lithograph.
Also won an autographed album from the Thompson Twins during a radio call-in show that they guested on.
The most recent thing I won was a pair of pit tickets to one of those radio-sponsored summer concert festivals a few years ago. Stone Temple Pilots and No Doubt headlined, so that was pretty cool.
I won $150 worth of soccer gear this Christmas–I also did not recall having entered–it was a “text to win” thing, and I detest texting, so they must have had an alternate way of entering. I thought it was a scam, but it wasn’t–SWEET GEAR!!
Back in grade school (Catholic), they used to have a Mardi Gras party in the church basement on “Fat Tuesday”. I was about 4th or 5th grade and bought a ticket for 50 cents or something and won a “bushel of booze”. Surprisingly, the guy just handed it to me like nothing, even though I was about 10 years old. I got my dad’s car keys and put it in the trunk of his car. He liked that.
Locally, there is a Super Bowl board at a bar. $100 per block and 100 blocks on the board, winner gets $10,000 cash but pays the bar tab (beer only) for the Superbowl party. The bar supplies the food. Yep, I hit it once and a few years later, my wife hit it. The bar tab runs about $1,200 including tips for the bartenders.
I won season ticket to the Philadelphia Flyers when I was a kid.
My best friend at the time was in the fan club and had to sell raffle tickets as a fundraiser, so I bought one. His parents were quite wealthy though and I’m pretty sure they rigged the contest so I won.
I’ve been chasing that same high ever since…Damn raffles
……the Kemosabe answer… supposedly it means “soggy bush”….. Was he a 70’s porn star too?? ha
Me? Lucky? Shit NO! The only thing I have every won were tickets from a radio station to see Howie Mandel (sp?). Big Whoop. And that was back in the early 90’s. In fact, it was the same time as the Pens were going for the Stanley Cup and I was listening to the broadcast on and off during the show on a radio with ear phones!
My best friend is the luckiest bitch I’ve ever met. Last summer we rode to a monthly car cruise at a nearby bar. They had a 50/50 raffle. She won it….300 bucks. We went a month later…she bought an arm’s length of fitty/fitty’s…… won that too. Unbelieveable.
Oooo, Bikerchick reminded me. Won a 50/50 at a dinner dance around 5 years ago. $780 sum dollars. The dance featured a top shelf open bar all night long, so needless to say, we were pretty pie eyed when we left the place.
Even though we had eaten hours earlier, we had the late night drunken munchies. Hit a 24 hour convenience store in a not so nice part of town. As the clerk is ringing us up, the wife wanted something and I said no. She yelled out, “Aw c’mon, you got hundreds of dollars on you!”
I just about shit out a rectal plate on that one.
In 1991, I was hanging out at a friend’s house, and we were trying to revive my 1973 Cutlass Supreme. We couldn’t. I had gotten my $500 worth of driving out of the car, and it was dead.
To cheer me up, he drove me to The Pied Piper in the Kanawha Mall, where they were having a Gibson Guitar clinic. Feeling like the unluckiest man alive, I entered a drawing hoping to score some strings or a strap for my shitty Memphis Les Paul copy.
Somewhere in the Gibson archives, and published in their newsletter, is a photo of me covered with car grease, looking homeless and confused, holding my gleaming white Les Paul Studio Guitar.
And it’s sitting about eight feet away from me as I type this, eighteen years later.
The other luckiest thing to ever happen to me was the divorce, but there’s really no way you can use the “prize” in that context.
My former company used to have prize drawings at the Christmas (Holiday/Winter Solstice/whatever) parties every year, back when the economy was good…
Some of the prizes were really nice, some of them were casserole dish caliber. Anyway, in 2 separate years (out of about 6) I won a TV. The first one was an old-school 20-in tube model, but the second was a much nicer HDTV.
I’ve won a few knick knacks over the years, but nothing more than being able to buy a coffee and a dozen donuts with the proceeds.
I won about $300 on a pick three
I won a Turkey in a raffle at the fire dept
I won last year’s work-super-bowl-pool ($200)
I won a weekend in the Poconos. When my wife and I finally went we soon figured out there was Polka Festival at the hotel. Lots of dancing old people!
I won a photo contest and a previous employer. The prize? A camera.
So, not bad little bits here and there. I started playing in the big jackpot lottery with some co-workers, so look out!
I remember back in the late 70’s (i think) the movie The Jerk (Steve Martin) had just been released and a local radio station were offering free tickets if you rang in and told them why someone you knew was a jerk, well I did and said something about my best friend, we won the tickets but for some reason he wasn’t too excited about it…that’s all I got for now…
I won a photo contest FROM a previous employer.
I wouldn’t want to win the employer…
In my youth, I correctly guessed the weight of a steer and won a $100 gift certificate from Ochoco Feed & Farm Supply in Prineville, Ore. Won a “guest deejay” contests at KRCO-Radio request line show in same town and had the embarrassment of having my dad call the station and tell me to get home and change sprinkler pipes.
I don’t buy lottery tickets unless I get “a feeling”. Every time I’ve had the urge, I’ve won something.
Once when I was first married, my washing machine died. I didn’t have the money to replace it but I got “that feeling” so I bought a ticket. Won $500 bucks and got a new washer.
Mr.Man buys a powerball ticket or has me pick one up but I’ve never gotten “that feeling” about it. Guess I’m meant to be just your average, run of the mill person.
Bikerchick, I’ll be laughing about your comment the rest of the night. Good one!
We so want to see that video!
I won a Conway Twitty album once – does that count?
(HATE Conway Twitty)
I, too, want to see the video of Jeff doing his 105-second record run, only at double-speed and accompanied by “Yackety Sax.”
Melissa – I’ve heard this is pretty common practice among casino junkies, the theory being that the machine will go for so long before giving out the big jackpot. So if somone’s been at one machine for a long time with no payout, the big one is inevitable. So the junkies watch for someone who’s been sitting a long time, then jump on their machine. I don’t know if it actually works a the time though.
I don’t win things very often either, but last year about this time, I won a pair of Pittsbugh Penguins gardening gloves. I’m not a huge Pens fan, but the gloves are actually pretty nice.
when I was a kid, I won a hardcover book about baseball from Sport magazine from some contest they had. when my kid was two, I won a $1000 in merchandise (in the form of 100 $10 gift certificates) from a Crown Books grand opening prize drawing.