A winning attitude

I used to be a winner. By that I mean I used to win contests, it was pretty fun.

I remember getting at least a couple ribbons every year from field day in elementary school, and this was pre-every kid gets a trophy days. My ribbons were usually 1st or 2nd place, if I'm remembering correctly. In middle school I would have got an award for having the highest math average if it wasn't for the teacher miss-grading one of my tests (he saw a minus as a plus, I pointed it out, he tried to say I changed it after the fact [which he should have known I would never do], I cried).

But I'd like to talk more about random contests, raffles as we used to call them. And I'm definitely not going to mention that I was a finalist in a Seventeen magazine modeling contest in 10th grade.


Photo from Flickr user *phototristan


When my dad worked for a certain insurance company, they had annual meetings for all of the members (we were members too). They would serve dinner, talk about insurance stuff. The only time I remember paying any attention to the speakers was one year when they went over some "common" household accidents. What can I say, I may have had two teachers who wanted me to be tested for ADD, but stories kitchen fires and people getting injured while on the toilet could always hold my attention. Best of all they gave away door prizes!

When you would come in the door you got a ticket and sometime during the evening they would draw tickets and give away items they normally sold in their office like onions, honey, nuts, and jellies? Eh, I don't remember what they all were, but I do remember that I won them. For several years in a row I won peanuts, one year I won peanuts and honey! I have no idea how I won two prizes, did I have someone else's ticket? Did they call the same number twice? I don't know, but it was pretty exciting. Did I like peanuts? Not one bit if they weren't hot boiled peanuts, but did I eat those peanuts? You betcha, I did. I even dipped them in the honey the year I won both.

I think part of what made it so exciting is that I was always surprised to win. One year, I was feeling pretty lucky, but winning still surprised me because, well, what are the chances?

When I was in high school Coca-Cola had their "red hot summer" contest. It wasn't all about entering codes online like those types of things are now, it had something to do with this card you got from school and calling a toll free number to check if you've won. Anyway, pretty much right away I won free Jazzercise classes (I didn't go). Then I figured out that the prizes had to do with the zip code were you lived, so I called and changed my zip code to the zip code of a then friend who lived in Orlando. Next thing you know, I won tickets to a Black Eyed Peas concert. Of course, this was in 1998 and no one knew who The Black Eyed Peas were yet; I didn't go.

There was also a time when I was a member of some teen girl website, I don't remember what it was called, but they probably spelled "girl" with a u instead of an i, and I entered some contest that I didn't really even care about and won. The prize was pretty cool though, it was a pink guitar strap from Built by Wendy (she no longer makes guitar straps, btw), designed by Courtney Love along with a guitar pick with someone's initials on it. Wendy's? Courtney's?

Then, in 2004, when Pedro the Lion's album Achilles Heel was coming out, I noticed a banner on HM where you could enter to win the album. I entered and a few weeks later, without any warning the album arrived in my mail box. I had forgot about entering until it arrived.

It's a been a while since I've won a contest or drawing and I've come to think maybe it's my attitude that is the problem. When I won all of those contest, I never anticipated winning but I definitely didn't have the negative attitude about contests that I do now.

Most of the time when I see contests now, I think to myself "eh, I'm not going to win." Sometimes I don't even enter because I feel like "what's the point, I'm not going to win." Where did this attitude come from? When did it start? I want to somehow align it with a series of disappointments that happened after high school, but I can't seem to make that theory fit.

Perhaps if I changed my attitude back to a winning one of "hey, I could win" I might actually win something again.