A Sampling of the Strange Things I Have Won in Raffles Ala McSweeneys
1. A goldfish at the school carnival when I was 7. This started off a long line of unhappy goldfish in my possession, none of whom appreciated me picking them up in my valiant effort to have them be as fun as a puppy.
2. A Rubick’s Cube from a different school carnival. Possibly the best, most coveted random prize of my existence.
3. A cake, although this was from a game of musical chairs, but it was no less random as who gives an 8 year old a full cake as a prize?
4. A trip to the local version of Chuckee Cheese which featured a dragon and was in the mall, and was slightly less horrifying to my mother’s sensibilities because it smelled less like cat pee.
5. A copy of the Baghavad Ghita thanks to the $5 I paid to have the computer tell me what animal I’d been in a past life. As a result of my $5, I received the Hare Krishna newsletter every month until I was 25 when my mother finally called and told them to stop sending it because she had hopes I’d go into public service.
6. A gift certificate to the Minnesota equivalent of Rite Aid and a bag of condoms from the health fair at college. The condoms accompanied everything that came from student health, much like the samples of Sudafed and Robitussin.
7. Movie tickets to the local 3-Plex from the same health fair. This would have been a great prize but the theater kept running the same movies for quite some time and the gift certificate expired before they changed movies. I’d already seen everything there before I won.
8. A remote control car from a work raffle. I gave it to the Tots for Toys fire department drive, although I suspect based on the look of glee covering the firefighter’s face, it may not have made it out of the station house.
9. The $10 grocery prize from Trader Joe’s for bringing my own bags. I earned this. I make them give me a raffle ticket every time even when they forget. Mike won too and we each used it to buy cheap wine.
10. A signed NFL hockey puck and certificate authenticating it at a “Say No to Drugs” 5K.
11. Tickets from the internet to see Sonic Youth and Pavement at the Hollywood Bowl which I couldn’t use because I ended up having to work.
12. Other tickets to see The National in Pomona which I had to give back because I was sick and wouldn’t have been able to go anyway.
13. A signed picture of the cast of “Hot in Cleveland” from a bar when we went in to have a cheap drink and discovered that we were about to be in the midst of a “Hot in Cleveland” viewing complete with free shots and a raffle.
