The Golden Bottlecap

There is this grocery store that I normally go to that has some sort of contest every year, sometimes two. Earlier in the year they had football "tickets" and the idea was that if you bought certain things you would get those "tickets." the tickets were scratch off and if you won the scratch off, you earned the coupon on the bottom. I'm still unsure why that was the case, I cheated and used the bottom every time. It's not like it mattered at all since the coupons were for food that I would never buy. I mean honestly, who wants to get a pizza with no flavor and the consistency of cardboard? Anyway, after that time I told myself that I wouldn't join in on the grocery contests.

They just had another one and it is one of those standard Monopoly board game based contests, which are even worse. Here are game pieces for buying food. The game pieces come with coupons so you can buy more food to get more game pieces. Essentially, it's a vicious cycle because someone could buy a couple hundred bucks worth of food and still fall short of having enough coupons to win a $10 gift certificate to the same store.



So after each of these contests, and we still haven't won anything, we ask ourselves Why do we participate if we know it's a ploy? The answer is simple enough: The American Dream. We want to have more than we have right now. It doesn't matter if it's the form of that house in the suburbs or a gift card that allows us to pay for groceries for the next two months, we want it. Some view it as our addiction to materialism, but sometimes it's more than that. Sometimes it's freedom to be able to do more than what we can at the moment. I'm not saying that buying a Ducati simply to get women is akin to winning a large sum of cash to continue living. The two are similar in being the American Dream, but to different ends.

Just Remember:Winning would be amazing, but those are some pretty long odds in this situation. Be realistic and put the six bags of pizza rolls back.




-Future_Man_3000


P.S. - If you have any questions you want answered, feel free to contact me by email: futureman3000@yahoo.com