Winners Never Lose (They Just Get Violent)

WARNING: THIS BLOG POST CONTAINS VIOLENCE (clobbered to death with a TV) STRONG LANGUAGE (“bit of an idiot”) AND REFERENCE TO NUDITY (“…was in the shower”)

One of my most common complaints when I was younger was “I never win anything.” Not raffle draws, not lucky dips, not even the US DV lottery. (The fact that I’d never applied for the DV lottery was irrelevant; the point was “I never win anything”)

When I was fifteen and a well-known soft drink company offered cars as Star Prizes, I went out and bought crates and crates of the drink. I drank and drank until my teeth hurt and yet I won nothing; not even a bottle-opener as a Consolation Prize.
And believe me I needed all the consolation I could get, particularly when the winners of some short story competitions I entered were announced – and I wasn’t one of them. My disappointment quickly turned into cynicism and I began to think that anyone who entered competitions was a bit of an idiot.

I’d look at my sister in amusement as she answered quiz questions and collected bottle caps and soap wrappers as entry tokens, holding back from asking why she bothered only because she always looked so happy and optimistic (oh, please.) I didn’t want to douse her raging enthusiasm.
She would excitedly watch winners claim their prizes on TV and cheerfully announce that “next time it will be us.” “Yeah right” I would mutter sourly, itching to change the channel. Such a sore loser I was, even when I hadn’t taken part in the game. But deep down I felt my sis deserved to win because she was such a good sport.

Then a few years ago something happened to break the jinx of my losing situation.
One of those ‘instant win’ coupons tucked inside a foreign magazine promised a Jackpot Prize of a million pounds. There were several other prizes but who noticed them when there was a million pounds up for grabs. When scratched the coupon proclaimed “You are an Instant Winner! Call to claim your prize before midnight on July 31st.” My mum was scheduled to be in the UK before then and we convinced her to call when she got there. “We have nothing to lose.” Suddenly it looked like a Very Big Win was imminent.

“A million pounds won’t be bad at all” my mum said after a while, looking pleased.
“It might not be the Jackpot Prize,” I pointed out in my usual cynical manner. “Let’s not get too excited, it might just be the ten thousand pound win.”
“That’s still a lot of money” mum said and my sis agreed.

There was a moment’s silence as we all sat around the living room smiling and imagining all the things we could do with the Very Big Win.

“You guys know that the coupon was in my magazine,” I said. For some reason I felt it was very important to remind everyone of that fact.
‘Yes but your brother bought the mag” my mum replied
“For me” I emphasized
“But I found the coupon” my sis reminded us
“And I scratched it” mum announced
“So who gets the money?” The question hung in the air.

“We could share it equally,” my mum suggested generously
“But it’s my mag…” I whined.

And so a family feud ensued, as usually does when large amounts of money are involved. Looking back it was ridiculous for us to argue over money we hadn’t seen yet. Reminds me of the story I used to hear back in my mum’s hometown, about getting yourself worked up over something that might never happen.
Ok maybe there’s a different version of this story in every part of Nigeria but this is the version I know: A man was stopped by neighbours as he beat his young son. “What did the poor boy do?” the neighbours asked. “He threatened to beat my dog” the man replied angrily as his son wailed in the corner. “What dog?” his puzzled neighbours asked “You don’t have a dog.”
“I will” replied the man, “When I sell the palm nuts from the tree I’m about to harvest.”

Long story short, mum travelled, called the number on the coupon and found out that the prize attached to our lucky numbers was a holiday to the Cayman Islands. So the jinx was broken; technically I had won something; since we’d agreed to share the prize I’d won one quarter of a trip to an exotic island, whatever that amounts to. Of course none of us went anywhere near the Cayman Islands and that was the end of that.

My winning spirit was lifted even further when I attended a discount fair with a friend, (Dress for Less, the Christmas fair at GRA? Anyone know it?) where I won an instant prize of eight packets of noodles in the lucky dip.

Perhaps not the most impressive win ever, but I was really happy that I had won something. That wasn’t all; my purchases at the fair also qualified me for entry in a raffle draw. I didn't give the draw a second thought and skipped merrily home with my noodles.

A few days later, on Christmas Eve I was in the shower when I got a text message on my phone with incredible news: “You Won The TV!” I blinked twice. Me? TV? Win? I called the number and a lady from the discount fair congratulated me and said, “Come and pick up your TV now!” I raced to the fair grounds in record time, was handed my tiny 14-inch TV and cheerfully congratulated. “No photos or anything?” I asked the lady, noting with disappointment that there wasn’t any TV crew or photographer on hand to record this landmark occasion. Unfortunately it was late and they were packing up to go so they barely paid me any attention.

As I carried my win off to the car I steeled myself to hear someone yell “Wait! There’s been a mistake - the TV is meant for someone else; you won a carton of noodles!” but thankfully, that didn’t happen. I would’ve killed somebody. Clobbered them on the spot with my brand new TV.