The Secrets Of Winning

My mom called.  "Your bike is here."

My answer: "I don't know what you're talking about."

She explained that my dad told her that my bike was outside.

I explained that I still had no clue what she meant.

We met each other outside.  At the side of the house was a box.  The box was addressed to me.  It had a brand new albeit disassembled bike inside.  It was a heavy box.  I opened it to look for paperwork.  There was no paperwork.

First, I panicked a little.  My computer had a virus and I thought maybe there was an internet order snafu or someone was using my credit card.  Then I thought, if someone bought a bike with my credit card, they probably wouldn't ship it to me.  Just in case, I checked my credit accounts and bank accounts and nothing showed up as purchased.

I then called Eddie and left him a rambling message about a bike appearing and needing to know if he bought me a bike or if he bought a bike for himself.

Then I went back outside and wrote down everything on every label including: 20th Century Domestic and How I Met Your Mother.

What the hell does the sitcom I watch have to do with a bike arriving anonymously at my house?  Well, everything.  Because I won a bike!

After searching for 20th Century domestic and then 20th Century, I searched for 20th Century How I Met Your Mother Bike.  All of that turned up nothing, but you can see what a wiz I am at Binging things.  Then I typed in How I Met Your Mother Sweepstakes and BAM!  There it was.

I had entered a contest at the end of the summer online because my laptop happened to be on my lap when I was watching HIMYM and the sweepstakes popped up on tv.  I'd entered because the grand prize was a trip to Hawaii.  I didn't win a trip to Hawaii.

But I did win the first runner up prize--a brand new Nirve men's cruiser. No one had notified me, but who cares?  Yeah, man, I got a bike!

Actually, Eddie's got a bike.  I got Melissa Etheridge tickets.

I'd entered some random contest on 102.7 Fresh FM after going to their free concert in the park.  I got a phone call on a random day from a random number (actually, I got two phone calls from two random  numbers on the same day--more on that in a second).  It was someone from 102.7 and she wanted me to call her back.

I called back and asked for her and she wasn't there.  The girl asked if I knew what it was about.  I said I didn't know because the message didn't say.  She asked, Did you win something?  I said, I hope so.  She put me on hold to check and when she came back, she totally called me very very very old.

Actually, she didn't say those exact words but she did say this:  You won tickets to see, um,  Melissaaaa, um, Eth - er- ridge, is that how you say it?

Yes, yes that is how you say it, girl who is too young to know who the hell Melissa Etheridge is even though you work at a radio station giving away tickets to her concert.

So I got Melissa Etheridge concert tickets AND a ticket to a scavenger hunt.

Scavenger hunt?  Well, you see, on the day I entered the Melissa Etheridge contest, I also went to PLJ as I do from time to time and entered a bunch of stuff on there.  When my phone rang with a random number and I didn't answer the first time, I got this message:

Uh, hey, Uh Christina?  Uh,  yeah, well, um you are going on a scavenger hunt and you should call back or just check your email.  Oh, uh, this is the radio station by the way, and uh, you won the scavenger hunt ticket.  Yeah.

Thank you, obviously first day on the job intern.

I checked my email and saw that I had indeed won a ticket.  I'd entered because I thought it was for two tickets.  Who the hell wants to do a scavenger hunt alone?  So I won that but skipped it.  Who needs a scavenger hunt when I've got tickets to an old lady concert (old lady here obviously refers to me, the old lady who knows who Melissa Etheridge is).

Everyone keeps telling me to play the lottery, but I don't think that's my kind of winning.  I'm really not that lucky.  I win stuff because I enter every single contest I see.  I know that there aren't specific odds that I will eventually win because they don't depend on each other (meaning my odds of winning each contest is the same no matter how many I enter--this is why I don't teach statistics).  I do know, however, that my odds of winning are much higher when I actually enter stuff.  So I'll save my money and not enter the lottery.  My luck is much better for odd items like turkey basters and pulse monitors (one of which I have actually won in the past and I'll leave it to you to guess).