Loser Finally Wins

I have a confession to make: I am a serial contester.

If there’s a contest out there chances are I’ve entered it. I adore the thrill of winning even though I never do. Like a dog that gets kicked, but still worships at it’s masters’ feet, I worship at the alter of the contest gods hoping that one day they’ll throw me a bone.

I’m not a picky contester either! Oh no, we die hard addicts of chance don’t discriminate! I enter magazine contests, Twitter, Facebook, Blog and website contests. And when I was young I would pray that one day my milk carton would moo and I’d win a mountain bike… that did actually happen, but to the kid who sat three desks down from mine. Until now, that was the closest to winning I’d ever been. Sharing a classroom with a mooing milk carton.

About a week ago my luck finally changed! The contest gods threw me not one fat, juicy bone, but three!

I entered a contest to win some Augustina perfume from a site called Sidewalk Hustle. I love perfume almost as much as I love entering contests, so I had my fingers crossed tight that I’d win this one. After days and many contest entries later I was notified by the site editor that I had won! I remember exactly where I was sitting when I found out the happy news. I was on the left side of my sofa watching Dexter with my boyfriend, Scott, who kept harassing me to turn off my computer and snuggle him. I actually said, “shut up! I think I’ve won something!” and he paused Dexter so I could fully focus my energies on understanding what had just happened. I had actually won. I wanted to change my middle name to Winner the next day; that’s just how excited I was.

Yesterday, the winning streak continued when I found out I’d won a gift card from Miik! They’re one of my favourite recent discoveries in this city. They make clothing out of bamboo and they manufacture it here in Toronto. Eco friendly and local, that’s my kind of company (if you’ve read my post China, I’m so Over You then you’ll understand). I entered their Valentine’s Day Facebook contest thinking “what the hell, maybe the Sidewalk Hustle luck will follow me.” And BOOM! I won again! This time I did a little dance in front of my desk cause I thought "this is too good to be true!".

After I stopped dancing I noticed I’d received an email from Cinemaclock.com. I go to their site everyday because they often post contests to win movie tickets and DVDs. Lo and behold, I’d won a DVD on Joan Rivers! Not even five minutes after winning at Miik. At this point I had to leave the room because I thought I was going to cry. Scott pokes fun at me because I religiously enter so many contests. When I told him what a roll I was on he was just as baffled as I was! I thought of alerting the press and letting them know they’d have a headline for tomorrow’s paper: Loser Finally Wins and then a shot of my face still glowing with the sweat from my winners dance. Millions of copies would be sold and I’d single handedly save the print media industry. This was a stretch, but the winning had gone to my head and that’s the great thing about winners, they have the luxury to dream.

I bought Scott a trip to Las Vegas for Christmas. We’re leaving in four days. Fingers crossed this winning streak follows us and I come back with bags full of money… luxury to dream, remember.