My dad was big into sweepstakes, taking advantage of every offer that came in the mail.\u00a0 I’ve entered a few in my life\u2026even purchased a few lottery tickets\u2026but never to the extent he did.\u00a0 It became an obsession for him after my mother died, which explains how he was scammed by the man who called to tell him he had won the Canadian lottery.\u00a0 Dad wired a boat-load of money to Canada, supposedly to insure the delivery of a million dollar check, and never saw a dime in return.<\/p>\n
But the sweepstakes were not much better.\u00a0 Daddy believed that by making a purchase he would increase his odds of winning, so purchase, he did.\u00a0 He bought book after book after book that he didn’t read or need.\u00a0 Even purchased multiple copies of some books.<\/p>\n
He had stacks of unopened boxes from the big two, Publishers’ Clearing House and Readers’ Digest.\u00a0 He had piles of unopened mail as well, but Daddy made sure he opened all the sweepstakes entries and followed their intricate instructions (pasting stickers, etc.) to make his selections.<\/p>\n
He became obsessed with winning, though God only knows why.\u00a0 He was alone, in his eighties and no longer traveled.\u00a0 Why would he need all that money?<\/p>\n
Maybe it was simply a hobby for him, though an expensive one.\u00a0 He was spending hundreds a month on those entries.<\/p>\n
Perhaps he didn’t remember from one day to the next what he had entered or ordered.\u00a0 Dementia can do that to a person.<\/p>\n
I sent letters to Readers’ Digest and Publishers’ Clearing House, finally convincing them to take my dad off their mailing lists. \u00a0But their commercials are so appealing.\u00a0 Who wouldn’t love it if someone with roses and balloons rang the doorbell with news that they had won ten thousand dollars a week for life?\u00a0 The commercials make you long for that scenario in your own future.<\/p>\n
But I just saw a commercial that didn’t evoke longing in me at all.<\/p>\n
CBS, advertising its Colonoscopy Sweepstakes.<\/p>\n
That’s right.\u00a0 Colonoscopy Sweepstakes.<\/p>\n
Makes you want to jump right in line, doesn’t it?<\/p>\n
I know. \u00a0I know.\u00a0 They’re promoting health and the importance of screenings.\u00a0 And who knows\u2026the winner of this sweepstakes might just find that it saves his\/her life.<\/p>\n
I think I’ll live dangerously and pass on this one\u2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
My dad was big into sweepstakes, taking advantage of every offer that came in the mail.\u00a0 I’ve entered a few in my life\u2026even purchased a few lottery tickets\u2026but never to the extent he did.\u00a0 It became an obsession for him after my mother died, which explains how he was scammed by the man who called […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-75","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/oldkaren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/oldkaren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/oldkaren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oldkaren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oldkaren.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=75"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/oldkaren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76,"href":"https:\/\/oldkaren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75\/revisions\/76"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/oldkaren.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=75"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oldkaren.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=75"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oldkaren.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=75"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}