Are you a Winner??

Over the weekend I dragged took the children grocery shopping. I had promised Charlie he could pick out one box of cereal for the week because the current types we have at home aren’t high on his list of enjoyable foods. This is one area I am willing to be easy about – if you have to start your day off with food you hate, things are just bound to spiral downward from there.

When we got to the cereal aisle, Charlie started his hunt. This is where the timeless lesson of “be specific” came back to bite me again. I never told him it had to be a box on sale – I just assumed he’d remember that this is a rule I live by every time we shop. I refuse to pay more than $3 for a box of cereal, so it’s all about what’s on sale. I tried to thwart his attempts at a full price box, at which time he pointed out what I hadn’t said. We compromised with a cereal that was marked down a hair, but it was still over $4 – ACK!

His champion breakfast of choice ended up being Apple Jacks, which I think he partly chose because of the current promotion they have. Apparently some lucky winners will win a Nintendo DSi while most people will end up with points they can use towards DSi games, etc. As we finished shopping we discussed the likelihood that he did not pick a prize winning box – that in fact our store/town probably doesn’t even have one in it! Still, I think the little guy was still hopeful, and first thing this morning he tore into the box with excitement.

“Sorry, you are not a winner.”

He wasn’t too surprised and handled it very maturely. He wondered aloud if anyone ever actually does win any of these promised goods, and I said I didn’t know. Think about it – there are giveaways and prizes everywhere! Gogurt, fruit roll ups, cereal boxes, mnm bags, soda bottles. You name it, and there’s a good chance that product is giving one lucky winner $50,000! Do you ever read about or meet any of the winners? I told him I’d never won anything, and he pointed out our $1 on the fridge.

Ah yes, the dollar. When I was in elementary school, Cheerios did one of these big giveaways. You might remember it – they put one million dollars in one million boxes. Our family found one, sealed up in plastic, and it was proudly placed on the front of the fridge. All these years later it is still in its plastic, still on the front of my fridge. I’ve often worried one of the kids will open it to give money to the ice cream man, but they seem to get the uniqueness about it and have never touched it.

I imagine some day it will be on one of their fridges, and they’ll get to tell the story we’ve been telling for years.

As for other winners – have any of you out there ever been one or known someone who won big? I’d love to hear a story about someone who opened up their Apple Jacks to find a “Congratulations!!”

P.S. I did check to be sure our box wasn't one of the recalled -- we're good!