You Win... Maybe
It seems to be sweepstakes time again. My mail is full of envelopes proclaiming, "You have won $10 million dollars...." Once opened, of course, it is revealed that you have to enter first.
Pursuant to new federal regulations, there is also an additional special message: "If you opened this envelope hoping to find a $10 million check, paste sticker X in slot Q and see note on page 74.� Unfortunately, this note is still written in so-called �fine print,� which can only be read under ultra-violet light using an electron microscope and requires a working knowledge of Sanskrit.
Fortunately, you have me here, and I believe the translation is something like this: �Congratulations, you gene pool contaminating imbecile! You have won a free vasectomy (where applicable) and an all-expenses-paid, one way trip to Tierra del Fuego. The pen of my aunt is on the cabbage.� Of course, my Sanskrit is a bit rusty.
Anyway, most people have caught on that there is no check, and thus don�t paste sticker X in slot Q. Meanwhile, the population of Tierra del Fuego has increased exponentially. Ed McMahon is revered as a god down there, while Dick Clark keeps getting burned in effigy. This whole affair is rather sordid and bizarre, but it may end up shedding some light on the Easter Island mystery.
The above is a slight indulgence in wishful thinking. There is actually no vasectomy provision whatsoever. But Dick Clark would be well advised to stay the hell away from Tierra del Fuego. In fact, everyone would, except perhaps Ed McMahon, so long as he doesn't mind posing for the giant stone head they're carving of him.
At any rate, I'm getting very tired of these sweepstakes. First there are their annoying proclamations, "You are our big winner...if you have and return the winning number." Right. And I could be six feet four...if I were three inches taller. Then there are the constant threats.
"Last chance to enter! You will be dropped from virtually all our mailing lists!" As if I'm going to buy a subscription to "Bats Illustrated" or "Mold Growers Monthly" just so I won't stop getting sweepstakes offers. Indeed, I wish it were that easy to get off their mailing list. I have never bought anything and I'm currently on my fifth "last chance." I guess that's what happens when you are "virtually" dropped.
I know, of course, that I am in the computer down at sweepstakes headquarters (in Tierra del Fuego). And I will never, ever get out of it, because nobody there has the slightest idea how the thing works. Whenever the person elected "technician" has to go near it, he first sacrifices a printer and ceremonially splashes its ink around the computer to appease it. Erasing a name from memory would be a much more difficult feat, no doubt requiring a more spectacular sacrifice. Dick Clark comes to mind.
It is the computer that has created those hideous entry forms with enough stamps to paste on to exhaust the saliva supply of a half-dozen basset hounds. The technicians have never even considered trying to change the forms for fear that the computer would be angered and summon Ed McMahon. They dread the wrath of their god, so they avoid irking his digital messenger by questioning its mysterious ways.
The part that irritates me is that the words "$10 million" appear so many times that I can't bring myself to pitch the thing. I always start thinking about what I could do with all that money, like moving to Tierra del Fuego. Then I cave in and start pasting stamps, and make a mental note to buy a basset next time.
Some day I am going to overcome my avarice and throw out my entry. But I know that I would see Ed McMahon on TV the next month, announcing the winning name. It would be mine, and Ed would chortle and say, "I guess he didn't bother to send in an entry this year. Too bad!" How cruel is the ironic humor of the sweepstakes god. Maybe I could use a subscription to "Bugs 'N' Things," after all.