Good Luck and a Good Memory
October 1, 2009 by Lillie
I listened to a voice mail message earlier this week. A man gave his name, then said, “Please call me at your earliest convenience at the main office of the electric coop.” He ended with his phone number.
As a trustee and the secretary/treasurer of a trust my parents established to keep the small family farm intact after their deaths, I pay all the bills. Had I forgotten to pay the rural electrical cooperative that supplied electricity to the farm? That had never happened before, but one time I made a mistake in recording the meter reading. Now the coop reads the meter, so it couldn’t be that.
This certainly wasn’t the time to have the power turned off. We’re in the midst of a severe drought, and just a few weeks ago, the water level had dropped so low that the pump couldn’t reach it. Our tenant farmer had to haul water for the cattle for a couple of days until the well was repaired. It took another forty feet of pipe and several hundred dollars to get the well pumping again.
I’m conscientious about paying bills, so it’s unlikely I missed a payment, but what else could he be calling about? I told myself to quit trying to guess what the man wanted and just return the call and find out.
As soon as I identified myself, he said, “Congratulations! You’re the winner of the $250 electrical credit from the proxy drawing at the annual meeting.” The coop must have a certain percentage of its members vote at the annual meeting so the office mails out proxy ballots for members who can’t attend in person to mail in.
“Wow!” I responded. “I didn’t even pay close enough attention to realize there was going to be a drawing, so this is really a surprise.”
The coop representative said, “We didn’t announce it. The drawing was a surprise to everyone.” He explained that the credit had already been applied to our account, and we won’t need to make another payment until the credit is used up.
This surprise win reminded me of something that happened when I was in elementary school. The hardware store in the little town nearest to our family’s farm held a drawing. To enter, customers had to fill out a form with their contact information and their choice of prize. The store would give either a freezer or an evaporative cooler to the winner of the drawing. No one we knew had air conditioning in our rural area in the 1950s. We thought a window unit that cooled by evaporation of water, commonly called a swamp cooler, was air conditioning. All of us kids were excited about the possibility of winning an air conditioner.
But when Daddy filled out the form, he put the checkmark in the top box, which was a freezer. “Daddy,” we protested. “We already have a deep freeze! We want an air conditioner.”
“It doesn’t make any difference what I put,” he answered. “We’re not going to win anyway.”
He was wrong. He won—a freezer. I’m sure he didn’t even consider asking to change the prize. Daddy never wanted to rock the boat. I suspect he thought a freezer was a better prize anyway. A large family with cattle to butcher and garden crops to harvest could easily use two freezers. A swamp cooler in one window in one room wouldn’t make much difference in the big, old rambling farmhouse.
For a long time, we kids whined, “But we wanted an air conditioner.”
Wow! I rarely win stuff. But man what a lovely surprise.
Bluestocking,
It really was a lovely surprise, especially since I had no idea there was even a possibility of winning anything.
Nice! Don’t you love rural Texas life? There is nothing better than winning some free electricity, especially when it is a surprise.
C,
Yes, great fun!
Isn’t it nice when the wheels just role your way – especially after you have determined that the caller is genuine?
Nice one, Lillie – way to go!
.-= Andrew´s last blog ..Back home/back online! =-.
Thanks, Andrew. Surprises like this are very encouraging.
Lillie, congratulations! That is a nice surprise! This week I’m going to look for nice ways to surprise people, your post reminds me what a great feeling it is to be pleasantly surprised for both the giver and receiver.
.-= Karen Swim @Marketing Consulting´s last blog ..Tick Tock It’s Friday =-.
Karen,
You are so kind and generous. I know people will enjoy your nice surprises!
pretty surprise for U, in my case, i ve been getting calls saying I won something- like a cruise, or Disneyland-and a small detail, they have been asking me to pay some kind of fees
.-= alex´s last blog ..Protein For Your Cat =-.
alex,
There are a lot of scams like that—entice you by saying you’ve won something then asking for money. I probably would have been suspicious of this if my first thought hadn’t been to think I hadn’t paid my bill.
It makes a difference when the person calling you is from a company you do business with regularly.
Yeah mostly of these calls are scams or something that people do not seem tired of giving calls to many people and trying to part them from their cash…
Unfortunately lately a lot of things are like this =\
James,
There are amazing number of scams. It seems to me that in many cases it would be less work to earn the money legally.
Me too, I am very suspicious when it comes to calls like that but sometimes it’s only luck to blame
Carry,
And what a pleasant surprise it is to be able to blame luck.
I once won a draw held by a clothing store that I have an account with. They apparently geld it every month and included all account holders and I didn’t even know about it until I won
Jim,
You had a nice surprise as I did. It’s fun, isn’t it.
I’m not so lucky with promos or draws either. You seem to be lucky with this. And I’m sorry to hear you guys didn’t get the air conditioner… Blame dad. Haha! Just kidding
Louise,
Oh, we did blame Dad for a long time.
Hi Lillie, its nice for you that you’ve won a surprise prize, that’s a rare case, cause most likely some of these surprise prize are from a scam.. Well, really nice for you. thanks for the article.. have more surprise prizes to won.
.-= Roel@canada cheap life insurance´s last blog ..Mortgage Life Insurance Cornwall Ontario – Shopping Mortgage Insurance Rates is Easy =-.
Roel,
There are so many scams out there, I wanted to share that good things really do happen unexpectedly sometimes.
That’s a really nice surprise and congratulations. I have been joining a lot of draws but I guess I belong to the unlucky ones. lol. How I wish I am as lucky as you.
Peter,
Years ago, I used to enter all kinds of contests. Back in the days before the Internet, I had to enter everything on paper and mail the entries. I spent a lot of time and stamps trying to win something and never did.
This time I didn’t do anything except what I was supposed to do (submit a proxy vote so the organization would have the required number of votes at the meeting). I didn’t try to win anything because I didn’t know there was anything to win.
Maybe the lesson is to focus on what we’re supposed to be doing and not spend our time and energy trying to get something for nothing. (This is not a criticism of you—just musing about why I never won when I was trying to and did win when I wasn’t trying).
I loved the story about your father. My dad is exactly the same, would rather just let it lie than rock the boat (unless it was for something important, of course, in which case he’d happily overturn that boat if necessary!).
Ricky,
I’m glad my story reminded you of your own father.
Congratulations, It’s nice to win a prize..even a freezer!
Anna,
Thanks. I must admit I appreciated the $250 electricity credit I just won more than the freezer my father won when I was a child.
Did you won it for real? That’s not very much though, but still, you are very lucky. Maybe you should try playing the lottery.
Michael,
It wasn’t a lot of money, but it will pay our electric bill for about six months or so, so it’s a wonderful blessing.
As for playing the lottery, that would require me to spend money in the hope of winning more, and the odds are very much against me. Not for me—I’m too cheap to risk losing money.
You are funny and a gifted story teller. I wish I could afford an editor to edit my bad grammar and spelling. I wish I has your abilities. Perhaps that I just my own whining for my air conditioner. lol
He I notice you do website design what do you think of the site a person created for me. It will be live when I pay the last payment in two weeks. It is here at http://www.koutoumanos.com/mpayne/
Matthew,
Thank you for the compliment.
If you have problem with spelling and grammar (thought I haven’t seen in the several comments you’ve left here tonight), you can always ask for help from someone who isn’t a professional editor but is good with spelling a grammar. That could be a student, a teacher, or just someone who is knowledgeable.
Lucky that you won, well this story does give a huge lesson to each and everyone of us…never doubt yourself or your luck
You may never know what’s in for us…until that time has come so I am sure your dad would have surprised by that victory and would have always remained optimistic after it…
As in the comments go…yes it’s not a lot of money but yes six months of free electricity…who wants more? LOL and yes being greedy isn’t a right option
Money…runs away from us when we run towards it! You were concerned about paying your payments on time so everything on the farm remains in order so your luck helped you 
You’re now relieved of your electricity bills for next six months.
Brian,
The things that made it so nice is that it was “out of the blue” – we had no idea we were even going to be entered into a drawing. Just a nice, fun surprise.
I tend not to register for contests because I don’t like to give up my personal information, and the odds of winning are so low.
It must have been nice to win free power without having to register.
Albert,
We had to register by filling out the proxy card. Of course, the energy company had all our contact information, anyway, because we were customers.