Thu 3rd Sept 2009

The landlady of our pub was selling raffle tickets this evening, but it was a raffle with a twist. The tickets were numbered one to 300 and you had to pick a ticket from a bag. You would then pay an amount of money which corresponded with the number on the ticket. For example, if you picked ticket no.147, you’d pay £1.47. If you picked ticket no.80, you’d pay 80p, and so on.

The prize was a 14 inch television. I did not want a 14” television, but I also did not want to look mean by abstaining from a charitable cause. So I offered to throw £1.50 into the jar just to forfeit my turn, which I thought was a fair amount, being exactly average. I pride myself being exactly average, and thought the whole ‘donation without any motives of personal gain’ thing made me look quite generous. But the landlady was having none of this, she would take it is a flat donation, but insisted that I should pull out a ticket anyway. If I wanted to forfeit my prize, I could simply donate it back to charity. Her logic was too tricky for me to argue against so I succumbed to her ugly, bedraggled charms, thrusting my hand into her sack of paper numbers.

I pulled out ticket 299.

Under normal circumstances, this would have been a spectacularly unlucky draw, being the second most expensive ticket in the whole bag. But I had made a standard flat donation of £1.50 donation in advance. I looked helplessly at the landlady, wondering what this would mean. “That’s ok”, she said as she scrawled the word “charity” on the back, “lots of people who didn’t have change had to round their contribution up, so there’s enough it cover the shortfall.”

So there you have it. In a tiny way, I briefly experienced what it must be like to have won a game of “Deal or No Deal” by playing safe and wisely accepting the banker’s offer at a timely occasion (albeit a game of “Deal or No Deal” where you have to pay money rather than accrue it). Whoever says fortune favours the brave? Technically, I had actually made a profit of £1.49! HA HA In your face, cancer charity!

Of course, some perfectionists could argue I would have made a higher profit had I drawn ticket 300. But I am quite please I only got ticket 299. I would not like to be the BEST at something. I fully intend to stay in the realms of anonymous mediocrity of any field. I’ve no desire to be a local celebrity. I wouldn’t enjoy the notoriety of having everyone pointing and whispering whenever I walk in the pub, being henceforth known as the man who pulled out most expensive ticket. I was on this occasion, by all accounts a winner.