A bag of cotton balls. Actually, they weren’t even real cotton and they were stupid pastel colors, so I gave them away. Somebody else was in charge of the raffle prizes at work after that time, at least.
That’s not the worst prize I’ve ever won by the way. It’s the only thing I’ve ever won, therefore my biggest prize was a cheap bag of cotton balls. I worry that my allotment of luck was wasted on a 60 cent drugstore item.
In 1984 I won a brand new 84 Chevy Cavalier. The catch was you had to pay about $1800 for tax, license and delivery. At the time I was unemployed and the state child support agency was threatening me with jail because of back child support. I explained my problem to the owner of the dealership and he bought the car back from me for $2500, that was about 2/3rds of the retail price of the car. I paid my back support, bought a new pair of shoes and took my mom out for a nice dinner and the money was all gone.
My wife won a refrigerator from a new Fred Meyer store, they were giving away a bunch of appliances as a grand opening gimmick. We went to the store 2 hours after she recieved the phone call and somehow the refrigerator had been given to someone else. We got a $500 gift certificate instead and we spent the whole thing that afternoon. We didn’t need a new frig anyway.
When I was a kid (maybe 12) I entered and won a raffle for a kid-sized pedal-powered Indy Car. It was HUGE (like 5 or 6 feet long), but not big enough for me (I was ~80 pounds at the time). So, we gave it to my 4-year-old (boy) cousin for his birthday that year. He thought it was the coolest thing evah!
(The kids and) I won a large basket of craft items at the elementary school fair two years ago. They were thrilled- it had tons of great stuff in it.
They also won a pizza party last year.
I won a scarf and a bracelet at one of those home-jewelry show and sales.
(I’m going to one of the upper levels of heck for this)
Towards the end of the dot-com era, I attended one of the last shindigs Microsoft put on in our area. It actually wasn’t THEIR production, but it was at their site. At the end we all filled out our evaluations and were passing them down the aisles when I noticed my cow-orker’s eval was really wrinkled. I commented on him having sweaty palms and being nervous and he said something about it spiking his odds. So as I’m holding the pile of evals, I subtly wrinkle my eval, hidden on the bottom of the pile.
So, they hand out a cap or two, a T-shirt, then a full-on copy of Visio to Mr. Orker, Mr. Cow Orker. I look at him as he walks up and he’s got the best Poker face ever. He comes back and I’m about to say something snide when they call out Mr. Blank, Mr. Unintentionally Blank!
I won a $350 handheld GPS. Something I’d never considered owning, but it was cool enough to have…
Now, I missed out on a KPKE Radio $10,000 giveaway in the early 80’s because I didn’t know the song of the hour was Madonna’s Like a Virgin. Sad thing, I’d been listening to that station less than three hours before.
A $100 gift certificate to Albertson’s. I think I was 12. As I recall, my parents “bought” it off me and I bought a pair of rollerblades and a pair of Oakley’s.
I won my computer system - state of the art (Windows 95, Office 95, 16 MB of RAM, Pentium 90 Mhz, 15" color monitor, HP Deskjet color printer plus a desk with hutch and a swivel chair), at the time (November 1995).
Just this past June, we won a custom wig for my wife.
Just last month I won two round trip airfares to anywhere in the continental United States. Now I just have to decide where to go!
I won a six-foot tall, two piece, rolling tool-chest from our local Sears Hardware Store.
A lovely brown and tan afghan handmade by a grandma.
When I was about 8 years old, a man called from Sears and asked to speak to me. My father answered and started grilling the guy about why he would want to speak with an 8 year old girl. Meanwhile my mother is looking at me with this horrid scowl like I did something terrible. Turns out my mother the scowler had allowed me to enter my name for a drawing for:
a lifesize, enormous stuffed gummi bear.
I made them drive me there immediately to get the first thing I have ever won. The thing had to fit sideways and crumpled into the back seat. I was so very, very happy.
A similar situation happened at a theme park in FLA. My mom did that coke bottle/ring toss that is impossible to win and she won. We had to play extra to get the enormous polar bear home. And we had to carry the thing around all day.
The last raffles I won were at my local pub. I won a night of bowling and food and I also won 50 bucks in the Superbowl raffle, which was used to buy the bar a round.
Once a girlfriend who worked at a bank opened a checking account for me. I just signed over one of my paychecks and gave it to her and she did the rest, I didn’t even have to go to the bank.
It just so happened that everyone who opened an account that week was automatically entered in a raffle. So, 3 days later some one from the bank calls to tell me I’ve won 4 box seat Cubs tickets.
There is a bar around here that used to collect business cards - they’d then pull one a month and the winner would win a “cocktail party” for you and so many of your friends. I won one of those parties. It was a long time ago - I really don’t remember the details but it wasn’t anything special really. It was at the Alumni Club.
Just a month ago, I won a Trek 3700 mountain bike. It’s about a $300 bike.
I was doing my weekly shopping at my local (Annapolis) Trader Joe’s on a Saturday morning, and they were having a mini-fair with free food, drinks, and games for the kids to celebrate the fourth anniversary of that particular store’s opening.
They also had a drawing for the bike. Didn’t have to pay anything to enter; just write your name and phone # on a ticket, and drop it in the box. That afternoon, they called and told me I’d won.
A trip to Seattle, courtesy of my employer S****o, for myself and Mrs. Runestar.
The new Mariners ballpark, S****o field had just opened, and the company was giving away pairs of tickets to the corporate suite for games over Labor Day weekend. If you won a pair of the tickets, and didn’t live in the Seattle area, they were willing to fly the two of you to Seattle for the weekend.
My father was in politics and at the opening of a new factory, he and my mother were invited to cut the ribbon. Then they held a raffle using all the name tags of the people attending the opening and asked my mother to draw from a big black box. My mother, somewhat shy, had to be coaxed but went up on stage and gamely reached in the box and pulled out a name and handed it to the owner of the factory. He looked at it and burst out laughing. She had drawn my father’s name for a small color tv. My father laughed and they insisted he keep it. Mom drew again and the guy just about fell over laughing. He actually showed the card to the people in the front of the audience…it was HER name. My mother about died of embarrassment, but they insisted she keep the prize…a stereo system. Then he asked her to draw for the third prize and added, “you don’t have any other relatives here today, do you?”
Recently I won a radio contest for a $50 gift certificate at a restaurant, and four tickets to see Shark Reef at Mandalay Bay. At the end of the week, they drew one of the weekly winner’s name for another food gift certificate and I won it! There was, of course, a hitch. It was a $50 gift certificate at a very high end restaurant so even with the certificate, I would up spending another $60 to make up the tab. Still, was a nice dinner for about half price.
