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Too Much Of A Good Thing
“I won a lifetime supply of Slim Jim beef jerky from a contest at my local grocery store. By lifetime supply, I mean six massive cases of Slim Jim minis, with each case containing hundreds of them.
For the first three months, they were my go-to snack. It got to the point where I was eating dozens of them per week. By the end of the third month, I ended up sick/puking profusely and never touched a Slim Jim again. I gave the remaining boxes to my family.
It has been eight years and I still have not eaten a Slim Jim since. The thought of eating one or even smelling one makes me nauseous.”
Wait, What Are We Waiting For Again?
“One of my best friends in high school won free Chick-fil-A for a year.
I live in New Hampshire and a couple of years ago, our state just got our second ever Chick-fil-A, and to build the usual the hype that usually comes with ‘we’re getting a Chick-fil-A,’ the company held a promotion to celebrate the opening of the store where if you were some of the first people to visit the store on opening day, you would be given a card that you could use for one year to redeem free meals.
As one can assume, things got out of hand fairly fast.
People were driving from other states to camp outside of the store, and some people were lined up for almost two weeks before the store even opened just for a chance to be the winners of the contest. The plaza was littered with tents and cars that some people were staying in while they waited for the store to open. There weren’t that many people lined up at first, maybe less than 50, but nevertheless, they were still there for DAYS.
My friend drove by, didn’t even realize what the growing line was for, figured it had to be something cool, waited in line with everyone else because he figured he had nothing else to do for a bit, and ended up being one of the last people to win the certificate. He had no idea what he was waiting in line for, just wanted to kill some time, and ended up with free Chic-fil-A for an entire year.”
It’s Best To Not Share Some Things
“I won a year’s supply of pies. Given I’m a chap from the north of England and consequently pretty fond of pies, I was massively excited about this, fully anticipating to receive 365 pies in one go, and quite fancied the idea of an epic, heroic even, race against time to eat 365 pies before they went out of date.
I eagerly awaited pies.
Days pass. A lifetime it felt like. No information on the number of pies. No signs of delivery. The anticipation is killing me. I’ve run out of conventional non-pie food, because I’m broke, and I’m getting hundreds of pies any day now.
The phone rings. I’m at work, but the delivery guy is coming to our area that day, so I give him my work address. More hours pass, then finally: Pie time.
The box is enormous. My fridge and freezer are going to be crammed with pie. I’m going to have to keep pie in my pockets. Pocket pie. Nice. Eyeballing the box, I reckon 30% of the pie therein is going to have to go before I can even fit the contents in the fridge and freezer. This is going to be heroic.
By now, the giant box has stirred up some interest in the office. Word of my auspicious acquisition has traveled fast. Colleagues are gathering like vultures loitering around the carcass of a dead animal.
I open the box. More boxes. What is this? There must only be… like… 52 pies in here. One pie a week? This isn’t the south of England, this is the pie eating north and you fob me off with 52 pies!? Fine, I suppose a case can be made that it would be unhealthy and irresponsible to give someone 365 pies. I eyeball the situation, this will easily fit in my fridge and freezer once I’ve decanted it out of the wildly unnecessary extra packaging. I feel something else. Dozens of hungry eyes on me. I look round the pie deprived faces of my terribly paid and terribly treated colleagues… and I can’t just walk out with my 52 pies. Just seeing the pies and my happiness has been the highlight of all of our miserable weeks. They’ve all suffered this horrendous job and tyrant manager with me and they’re all broke and they’ve all got the puppy dog eyes. I can’ t just take my pies and leave.
‘Would anyone like a couple of pies?’ I kindly and foolishly ask. Of course, they want some pie, you’re in the north.
Of 52 pies I was able to secure maybe a dozen – including a good peppered steak pie – in the ensuing carnage.”
There Wasn’t A Contest But They Sure Did Win The Prize
“I didn’t really ‘win’ it – but through a series of hilarious events (a grocery truck flipped over, my parents run a tow truck company) I became the owner of about 5,000 packages of Snack Pack pudding.
It was all cool and fun until I got home and started filling my cupboards. I didn’t have enough room in my kitchen for all this pudding, so I kept some in my bedroom closet, and when that filled up, my dresser drawers, linen closet, and laundry room cupboards were now makeshift pudding shelters. I finally filled up the kitchen cupboards and pantry top to bottom with pudding cups.
Again, great for a bunch of guys, but really strange when you bring a girl back, she goes to your kitchen, and you can hear her open one cupboard, then another, and another, followed by a whispered ‘what is going on?’ followed by the pantry being opened and her finally yelling ‘Hey, what’s with ALL THIS PUDDING?’ If I was able to talk her into spending the night, she would be greeted by a still unfathomable amount of pudding taking residence in my room. If she took a shower in the morning, she’d have to ask where towels were, because, of course, another wall of pudding was staring at her when she tried to find them in the closet.
I finally finished enough of the pudding to make room for dishes and eventually started putting actual nutritious food in the kitchen about three months after. I ended up giving a ton of pudding away because I couldn’t bear to eat any more of the stuff.”
Well, At Least He Got Something Out Of It
“I recently ‘won’ a lifetime supply of a certain freezer pizza. It was a result of an issue with the pizza, so I did not really win it, but more of a reward as they phrased for helping with supply chain issues. This took place about five months ago and we heated up the pizza and let it cool. When it was ready to eat we chowed down and low and behold a tiny nail was in the pizza slice I bit into. Luckily no tooth or gum damage. So I called the number for customer service, left messages and tweeted and no response.
Finally, after digging, I found the CEO on LinkedIn and contacted her. She was nice and apologetic and immediately had a support staff call me the next morning.
The next morning I dialed into a conference call with a bunch of people on it to my surprise, and at the end of it agreed to send back the nail after they offered a prepaid FedEx envelope and a lifetime supply of pizza which came in the form of 52 coupons and to contact them when I run out.
We have used the coupons a few times, but the cashier always has to get a manager and override it which is kinda annoying, still not complaining thou, free pizza is… well free pizza!
Never heard about a follow up on the nail and what machine it came from, but they did say they have a machine in place to check for metals before packaging, which I did not know existed.
I wonder if they actually will honor it when I ask for more coupons or just ignore me…”
I’m All Jacked Up On Mountain Dew!
“In University, I won a year’s supply of Mountain Dew. I only got the Dew because the campus entered a deal with the devil and banned Coca-Cola products, and Pepsi and Dr. Pepper were sold out of the machine I was at. Next one down the line was Mountain Dew.
I only ever rarely drank the stuff as a ‘change’ – so I wasn’t that keen on it, to begin with. I hit the button, a bottle rolled out, and there was a sticker on it saying I had won. I called the number on the sticker, arranged a pickup time and location, had a friend drive me to get it.
They wouldn’t let me pick up a little now, and more later on. I had to take all of my winnings now.
What does PepsiCo think a year’s supply is?
A twelve pack every week. 12*52= 624.
We had to load 624 cans of green junk into the Jetta. I used to tolerate it – no longer.
I drank as much as I could, got sick of it real quick. I gave away most of it. It still took me almost six months to get rid of it. It doesn’t mix with any hard stuff (I heard a rumor once it was developed to mix with Rye, but no, that’s terrible too).
I’d show up at parties with a case and the host would make me take it home with me at the end of the night.
I tried to give it away to homeless people, but even they don’t like it that much.
That was about 20 years ago. Last year, I bought a bottle, wondering if I could drink it. Nope.”
So Much Popcorn He’ll Never Receive
“I was the top popcorn salesman at the stadium where I work. No one really wanted to compete in the deal since selling popcorn sucks and people prefer to buy other stuff at games.
I won a ‘lifetime’ supply of popcorn from the company and a trip between either Las Vegas or San Diego – four days and three nights. At the end of the season, the guy contacted me to say congrats and asked for all my info so he could book my flight and hotel. Four months go by, I never heard from him. Turned out he was wanted by the FBI, the popcorn shop closed down and I never got anything from that guy.
My company was cool though after they found out, they gave me a suite for a game that I wanted with 20 friends and free food.”
Finally, A Use For All This Skippy
“Back in 1990, Skippy held a contest to see who could find the best use of peanut butter. The prize would be a lifetime supply of their peanut butter. Everyone I knew entered the contest – many of my friends used it as an ‘Egg Shock Absorber,’ which was way too common. Someone used it to shave their dad’s beard (which ended up working). However, despite the thousands of entries, it was me that prevailed.
What was my oh-so-clever use, you may ask? Well, I was in my cupboard one day, looking for a snack. Remembering the contest, I took the jar of peanut butter and the closest food item to it. I combined the two and created an incredible combination of sweet and savory flavors unparalleled in the culinary world. Nobody else had ever thought of this previously, but I created the world’s first Peanut Butter and Graham Cracker sandwich.
So yeah, having unlimited amounts of peanut butter is nice, but I don’t have any Graham Crackers to combine it with.”
A Clever Solution To An Overabundance Of Cheese
“I once went to a grand opening QFC (Quality Food Center, big grocery store) when I was 12. They were having a free raffle, and I’m like, ‘Why not?’ So I entered.
Did I win the plasma tv? No. Did I win the iPod classic? No. 12-year-old me won a year’s supply of Tillamook cheese. It was a sheet of 12 coupons, each for two blocks of cheese. What was I going to do with cheese? I honestly didn’t even like cheese at the time.
After going home and moping for a while, I had an idea. After I discussed it with my parents, we went back to the QFC and I met with the manager and proposed my idea.
After being given a few more sheets, I sat in the entryway of the QFC with a cheese hat and sold them for face value. What did I do with the profit, you ask? I donated that to Hurricane Relief in New Orleans. I sat there for the whole day saying, ‘Cheesy for the Big Easy’ to every customer who came in.
This was shortly after Katrina and we ended up raising $500 that day.
That is my story. The end.”
“When I Die, I’m Likely To Be Buried With Combos”
“I won a lifetime supply of Combos, these little hard, salty, crunchy pretzel niblet things with a mystery ‘cheese’ ingredient inside.
I won it at a church raffle some years back. Apparently, the donor was some executive with the company.
I get a box of them every week for the rest of my life.
I’ve never eaten a single one. I didn’t eat them before and I don’t ever plan to start. I think they taste terrible. I didn’t even win the raffle technically because the first two numbers called didn’t come forward to claim the prize.
I used to donate the boxes to the food banks, but after a few years, they refused them too. I even asked the company to stop and that I was tired of getting them every week, so then they started sending me DIFFERENT FLAVORS! Every week now I get more and more combos. I’m afraid to ask them to stop again, they might up the amount they send.
The birds and wildlife outside my house won’t even eat them. They just stand in a bowl outside untouched.
When I die, I’m likely to be buried with combos.”
Even Muggles Can Find Magic In The Ordinary World
“I won a year’s supply of Harry Potter sweets when I was in grade school around the time ‘Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone’ had just released on VHS.
I saw a competition in The Sunday Times kids edition, The Funday Times, which required you to name the four variants of Bertie Botts in exchange for a VHS of the film, along with a year’s supply of Harry Potter sweets.
Not being able to find a piece of paper in the house that didn’t have something on it, I located one with four alien heads I had printed out from a random PC game I had been playing. Figured it might look cool if I attached each flavor of Bertie Botts to each of the heads.
Sent it. Thought nothing else of it.
About four months later I get home to a huge box on my bed. It contained 100 chocolate frogs, about 500 packets of Bertie Botts, and a lot of packets of sherbet lemons.
The kicker: their best before date expired about seven to eight months before the year was out. So I was cheeky and emailed the company. I got two more shipments before the year was out!
Was ace looking back!”
Solve A Problem And Get Rewarded
“I won free Coke products, but the story is a little weird. Basically, when I was attending university, I noticed that the Coca-Cola I bought near the school just SUCKED. Like it didn’t taste like Coca-Cola at all, more like an RC mixed with Pepsi. I commented on this to all my friends and they had no clue what I was talking about but I could blind test cokes from home versus ‘university cokes’ and get it right every time.
Eventually, I sent an e-mail to Coca-Cola basically asking why the Cokes in Cookeville sucked so much and could they fix it. They (quite surprisingly) took it seriously and asked for numbers off of the affected cans and tracked it down to the bottler (canner?) and had it fixed within six weeks. They sent me a stack of just hundreds of ‘free 12 pack of any coke product’ coupons and thanked me for my time.
It worked out great. I still had over a hundred of them left at the end of the year.”
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Does Red Bull Really Give You Wings?
“I recently won a lifetime supply of Red Bull through a local radio contest, and it is absolutely bonkers to go and receive it because I have to go to a grocery retail store in my area to claim my red bull in different flavors. I just go in there and say, ‘Can I get four 12-packs of regular and sugar-free,’ and that’s pretty much it. They tell me when they have a new shipment I go in and get first dibs basically, also I can also get limited flavors shipped to me directly if wanted. Like they will send the 12 oz cans in boxes for me so I can get like a whole case worth of Coconut Berry if I wanted, although Cranberry is best.
Still, it’s a pain to receive because the store doesn’t believe I won a lifetime supply, so they always hold the ones I come up and claim because they say it’s just too fishy until the manager gets there and has to verify me.
They said a lifetime supply is roughly 25-30 years for me (which I’m 24, so that’s kind of concerning, but whatever).
I literally have too much Red Bull to even count in my house right now. I live with friends we have like five half-fridges full of Red Bull in our game room.”
About Your Biscuits…
“When I was a kid, the Australian brand Arnott’s was running a competition where if you bought their Shapes biscuits you could win all sorts of prizes. After begging my mum for Shapes every time she went to the supermarket, I finally won a prize, which was a lifetime supply of Shapes. Little me was over the moon. But, when my mum took my winning card to be redeemed, the supermarket said they would have to contact the Arnott’s company.
After waiting months, we finally heard back from Arnott’s via a letter saying that they apologize but they couldn’t honor the competition but instead have sent a $3 check reimbursing my mom for the packet of Shapes.”
That’s Like 54,000 Hot Dogs
“I won a lifetime supply of hot dogs at a hot dog festival once.
It came with a nice grill. When I went to pick up my hot dogs, the company gave them to me all at once. I was 30 at the time, and their figures all worked off an 80-year lifespan. Three hot dogs a day for 50 years works out to be 54,750 hot dogs. That’s 5,475 packages of 10 hot dogs or 228 cases of 24 packs, 23 boxes with 10 cases each. I had to buy an extra freezer just to hold them. I gave away what I could not store. Churches, homeless shelters, food banks. We ate them for years.”
That’s My Kind Of Contest
“When a pizza place opened around me, I went on the very first day. They had people spin a wheel for prizes if you brought them your receipt. Depending on the number you landed on, you would win prizes accordingly.
When I went to spin it, I landed on a green dot that was only on that one spot. This wheel was large and had a TON of pegs, so landing on this dot seemed nearly impossible. The lady started freaking out and said I just won free pizza for a year.
The owner handed me a large piece of paper with days to mark off for a whole year. My dad and I would make a trip there once to twice a week for a free large pizza. If we wanted to, we could have eaten a large pizza every day of the year at that place.”
The Restaurant Burning Down Wasn’t A Bad Thing After All
“Our local Krispy Kreme burned down one day and reopened about a year later. The first 100 people in the door were given free donuts for a year with the first person getting donuts for life.
A friend and I camped out overnight with over 100 other people. The first guy in line was there for an entire week. We ended up getting our year of donuts, and it was a punch card which let us each come back once a month for a free dozen donuts.”