Huh. My gf and her friends worked out a deal with the taxi driver. They also invited him to share a few of their meals, and he gave them his card hoping they use him on future visits.
I’m facing this situation right now.
I was forced to retire from AT&T at the end of the year (our entire business unit was sold off). One of the traditional perks of retirement has always been a company paid-for event/dinner for the retiree and invited guests with a budget of $500. The catch is that my boss must be one of the guests. I have absolutely no desire to spend a single moment of my time with the man. I’m mulling over making a proposition to waive the $500 dinner for a $250 gift card, but I doubt the company will go for it.
I would find any prize that involved long distance air travel that was not business class or better difficult to accept. I simply need the room.
I remember a game show many years ago (late 70s? early 80s?) where some woman won a Rolls Royce. She wound up having to sell it to pay the taxes on it. So yeah, something like a really expensive car I would probably just say “No thanks” to, if I couldn’t sell it or take the cash equivalent.
Off-topic but I’ve always enjoyed this video of prizes won from competing on “Jeopardy!”
“…second prize is two weeks in Philadelphia!”
I can’t think of a single category I would turn down. Beach vacation to St Martins; probably – Virginia Beach and I’m packing now. I know a lot of good amusement places around there. I guess it comes down to a) do I have any possible interest and b) is the tax burden involved with accepting it within reason.
(Back in the day a friend won a trip; major league trip. He took it, enjoyed himself and all ------- until he found out it was taxable income at the time. He basically took an extra job for a couple months to help pay off his prize. I’m not doing that.)
- Refused to enter a raffle at work for a 70 inch flat screen TV…to the disappointment ( and surprise ) of many ( “Just in time for the superbowl!!!” )
I already have a 42 incher, which I watch for about 6 hours weekly. I don’t need or want a 2nd TV. My modest sized house hasn’t the room for a 70 inch TV…on a wall, or pedestal. I certainly don’t give a damn about sports, especially football.
- A motorcycle. Can’t think of anything I want less. OK, I can: A boat.
Well said. Concise.
I’d think long and hard before accepting a cruise unless it was an LGBT one or a specialized one. I have no desire to spend my evenings watching intoxicated 40 year old office workers dancing a conga line or dealing with all the touts at every stop.
A boat as well, I love to get out on the water m, but it’s a ridiculous thing to own in Chicago with such a short boating season. Plus, I’ve heard nightmare stories of parts being back ordered for months during summer.
What I would accept is a much much shorter list.
Pony trekking in Iceland, something I have wanted to do for a long time.
I’m also in the market for a new Ford F-150 turbo regular bed extra cab with four wheel drive, if that’s on offer. I would also accept an equivalent Dodge, I’m flexible.
Boat: maybe a canoe, nothing bigger or noisier.
You’d have to pay me a lot of money to go on a cruise, do anything whatsoever with a group of strangers (except pony trekking), or listen to amplified music.
Actually no, I wouldn’t go on a cruise for any money at all.
I can’t think of any I’d take.
Maybe beer.
Pretty much anything involving concerts, theater or musicals. I wouldn’t go to watch *Hamilton *even if I had free tickets.
Covering some things that have already been mentioned.
Anything living. I don’t want to be responsible for keeping something other than myself alive.
Something large and obtrusive I don’t want to own but would take up a lot of space. Like a piano.
Something that I don’t really want and would cause me secondary expenses. Like a boat or another car.
Tickets to an event I have no interest in seeing, like a boy band concert or a basketball game.
A free pass to some activity involving a lot of physical or mental exertion. If I’m going to put effort into something, I want to choose something that I’ll enjoy. Putting effort into an activity that somebody else chose is too much like an unpaid job.
Trip to Canada.
If I can’t sell it, I probably don’t want it.
I could use a new pickup, if it’s a good one.
Definitely agree with boat. Unless you can buy insurance and then sink the damn thing.
#1 for me would be a spa visit. And I wouldn’t be able to transfer it, since neither my wife not my daughters want anything to do with spas.
I did turn one down once. When I was on Jeopardy I won a week at a resort and airfare to it. However the place was 50 miles from my house, so flying was not all that useful. Still had to pay taxes on it. A while ago a woman from Champaign IL won a week in Chicago on Wheel of Fortune. She was less than thrilled.
Be careful! I heard about a guy who sunk his boat (well, a hurricane sunk it). After he took the settlement his insurer offered, he found out that the law where the boat sunk required the boat be removed from their waters.
It cost a small fortune to comply with the law, and he lucked out in that they allowed the boat to be immediately resunk in approved waters (as an artificial reef).
'Berders at the White House.
Seriously though, I did turn down a trip to Galena that I’d won on the radio. It was Jonathon Brandmeier’s show, and he was pretty popular in Chicago at the time. I was flyin’ solo and had no interest in a weekend in Galena. I asked if he could instead send me a t-shirt or a tape. He sent a t-shirt featuring a martini glass, a cd of the shows proud moments, and a VHS tape of his sold out concert at Poplar Creek.
Years ago, as the prize will make clear, my aunt was the big winner on The Price is Right. The grand prize was “a week for two in… RUSSIA!” We were all watching, and the look on her face said WTAF decades before I heard the phrase. A month later came the Cuban missile crisis. The producers’ first response was “too bad.” My new uncle negotiated, with reminders of the effects of bad publicity, a trip to Paris instead. I still remember their trip photos. (And my aunt’s astonishment at the hotel plumbing - the pipes were actually hanging on the outside of the walls!)
Huh, I truly can’t think of a travel- or experience-type prize that I would turn down, unless it meant missing a bunch of classes mid-semester. Even if it didn’t sound like my thing (like tickets to a major sports event), I’d probably give it a shot on the general principle that you might as well try everything once to see what it’s like, and you never know what you might end up enjoying.
I can think of physical objects I have no use for and no place to put, like a grand piano, but I’d want to check with the university music department first just in case they wanted one.