Raffle At Your Own Peril….
I was in church with Amy today and the priest mentioned something about a raffle to help…..well….someone?? I didn’t listen that far into the sentence I have to say – mainly because by then I’d already wandered off in my own mind. I do that a lot at church. Amy says that’s “acceptable” though, which is a good thing. Basically I’m there for Amy’s benefit really – which has been a problem in itself the past couple of months.
Anyhow, where was I?? Ohh yeah….raffles!
I just want to say that although raffles are a great way to raise money and awareness for organizations, they can also prove to be quite damaging for the individual – oh, but only if you believe in conspiracy theories and that sort of crap. For the benefit of this post let’s say that I believe……even if I don’t really.
Case in point. I was working on my computer a number of years back now when the phone rings. There’s a pleasant sounding girl on the line telling me about the Mental Health Foundation (real name suppressed for lack of interest in getting up to find out what it’s actually called) and the work that it does. “After all”, says she “One in five people will have a mental health problem in their lifetime, but five in five people can help”.
Who am I to quibble such figures? Sounds OK to me after all.
“Ms pleasant voice” then goes on to tell me about an upcoming raffle they’re holding to raise money for the foundation – a worthy cause nonetheless. A cause made even more worthy, to me anyhow, due to the fact that my own true love has suffered with mental illness in her own life many many years back – she being the “one in five” I guess? The raffle is made a fraction more worthy by the fact that a very nice car can be won if you’re good and just and lucky, or if you know the person pulling the ticket out of the barrel.
In my desire to do all that is good and right and just in this world – cause believe me I GOTTA get some brownie points back before I go to the spirit in the sky…..or wherever it is that I’ll eventually be sent. Not that I understand it works that way, but still. I mean why risk it, huh? Anyway I agree to take a book of TEN MEASLY TICKETS to raffle off to my TEN friends.
All goes well the first time around I have to say. Not that I won anything, nor did anyone who bought a ticket from me. We were the amongst the 249,997 out of 250,000 people who won diddly squat!
Another phone call three months later and another 10 tickets sold. Likewise another ten losers created.
The third time around though the organization ups the ante. No longer are they content with me piss-farting about with a mere ten tickets – ohh no! This time it’s double or nothing! I agree to take twenty tickets and I promptly sell ten of them. On returning the book to the organization I immediately get an attack of the guilts and decide to purchase the remaining ten tickets which I then write in the names of those who bought the first ten. Hence my friends get a “two for one” deal. Sweet!
Fourth book arrives several months later. It’s put aside on my desk while I busy myself with other affairs. When it “resurfaces” I discover that it’s due back in a week. I quickly write out ten tickets for my family and friends and split the remaining ten tickets between Amy and myself, then I send the book back. Phew, that was close! I distribute all bought tickets to their respective owners as a gift.
Months pass, and a fifth book arrives in my letterbox. Once again it finds it’s way to my desk top and once again the “seal” is broken on it’s ancient tomb with a week to spare! No problem I say! I’ve been here before and I know what to do. I write out ten for family and friends, then write out ten for Amy and myself. Book gets sent back to the organization. The difference this time is that all of the tickets sit in the middle console of the car, undistributed. Not that it matters. Nobody won.
Then the sixth book arrives. It’s given a cursory glance and thrown to the back of the desk as various paraphernalia are added to the top, concealing the book from the world of man.
And it stayed there….
It was not returned. It was not it’s fault. It was merely the “one in six” books that never made it back home? The organization may have called me about it. They may have not? Who knows? All I know is that it’s still there now – alone and rejected.
Needless to say the Mental Health Foundation have had other raffles since then, but have not bothered to tell me about them. In fact they’ve been very, very quiet indeed. Who can blame them? After all I am cheap, unreliable and I’ve only ten friends in the world – several of whom are actually related to me, rather than anything else, so they don’t really count as friends.
The question that needs to be asked though is has there been a downside to this? Yes, possibly? One thing I have noticed is since I stopped donating to the Mental Health Foundation my wife has had several months of mental illness. Coincidence, or something much more sinister? You be the judge.
Raffle at your own peril…..
