Come, Mommy

We had the most surprising thing happen this morning. Last night, I found a message on our phone. When Kevin accessed our voice mail, a young lady on the other end said, “My name is H., and I am the executive administrator for the Big Grocery Giveaway that you entered online. I need to speak to you concerning this sweepstakes.” He asked me about the Giveaway – yes, our local grocery chain was running it, the prizes are mostly gift certificates in the amount of $25-$50, and I had indeed entered it but then promptly forgot about it.

I rarely enter sweepstakes or store giveaway promos as the amount of work you have to do rarely seems worth the tiny chance of winning something. Plus. while I’m never sure what the folks on the other side of the monitor are doing with my personal information, I can be sure that the entry will result in spam in my inbox.

Early in June I saw big banners all over our grocery store promoting their newest sweepstakes, and by the time last week rolled around I had several entry cards collected from various shopping trips. Gran-Gran was here last week, and I had some extra time, so I went online to get the contest information. I was asked for no personal information other than name, town of residence,e-mail address and phone number, so I thought to myself, “Why not?” and entered the giveaway. And then I forgot about the entry until we got that phone message.

When Kevin and I were talking we assumed we had won one on of the smaller gift cards. Which would be cool, because feeding hungry children is not a cheap thing to do. This morning I thought, “Oh, good, it’s Friday, and maybe we’ll even save a bit on the groceries this week!” I got the boys occupied and returned H.’s call. Long story short, we won one of the fifteen grand prizes. We won a year’s worth of groceries. I had to ask her to repeat that, and she did. So after we fill out some paperwork, the local store will call us and set up a time for us to come down and pick up our prize, which comes in the form of 52 gift cards – one for each week for the next year. Wow. Groceries have been so expensive the last few months, and I’ve been doing all sorts of contortions trying to keep our food budget under control. I just can not believe that we won groceries for a year. I guess everyday people do win these sorts of contests!

My only worry in all of this is that I’m sure we won’t just get to pick up our gift cards, give the store manager our sincerest thanks, and drive off. I have a feeling there will be something of an event replete with balloons, the store mascot, and photographers. Just what does one wear to that sort of event?