Answer the Phone You Idiot

roulette table

Have you ever felt lucky? Have you ever walked up to the roulette table at a casino and known, just known, that your number would come up? No, that’s never happened to me either, but I have felt remarkably lucky my whole life. I’ve never won the mega millions but I am the kind of girl who wins the door prize at a party or whose name gets picked out of a hat. I am lucky at life in general. I have more blessings in my life than I can possibly count.

This weekend while I was attending a local, holiday event I saw a sign for a nightly raffle and felt compelled to drop a little slip of paper with my name and phone number into the box. I noticed the sign as soon as I walked into the lobby, then spotted two other similar billboards as I meandered around the building.

I don’t know why, but I felt absolutely drawn to register for this raffle. As my husband was zipping my son’s coat and putting on his mittens I slipped off to find the entry box. I even joked that I was feeling particularly lucky for Friday the 13th.

The raffle rules stated that you didn’t need to be present to win the prize and that a winner would be selected later that night. After filling out the form I rejoined my husband and son and didn’t give that raffle another thought. We enjoyed the rest of the evening and after a few hours we piled back into the car and headed home.

On the drive home my phone rang and I immediately rejected the call. We receive an incredible amount of spam these days and I often screen any calls that I don’t recognize. My husband told me to answer the phone but I ignored him and told him I was certain it was junk. A minute or so later the phone rang and again I ignored the phone call much to the distress of my husband.

After the second call was rejected I said “oh maybe I should have picked up. Maybe I won the raffle.” At first I was kidding, but when I got home I really wondered if that was the case. It was late on a Friday night. Who else might have been calling?

After we put our son to bed, which can be a rather lengthy process, I thought again about the raffle and the phone call and Googled for the number. My husband pointed out that I could have saved myself all of the trouble of searching the Internet if I’d only answered the phone when it first rang.

Sure enough the number mapped to the place where we just attended a holiday event.  I knew I was feeling lucky for a reason and realized I was an absolute idiot for failing to pick up.

I assumed my prize had been handed over to someone else, but dialed the number in the morning to find out if my name had been selected. I was told that I was not the winner, but the woman I spoke with was not there the previous night. I asked if it was possible that they moved on to someone else after I didn’t answer. The clerk said that was not store policy. She told me they always leave a message and give you a set amount of time to claim your prize.

I guess I’ll never know what really happened. There is no plausible reason that the store would have called me or even had my phone number on file.  I’m sure I won that raffle. To be honest I don’t even know what I would have won. I just know that it was valued at $50.

Isn’t that funny? All of this time wasted for an unknown prize. I suppose there is a lesson in every story and this one might just be to answer the phone when it rings.

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