Have you ever won anything from a sweepstakes?

I have. I won a prize once. It was valuable, and unexpected--and later, it came in really handy.

Back so long ago that I won't tell you when it was out of age snobbery, I was living in Germany. (Okay, okay--it was long enough ago that I was living in WEST Germany. ) One day, I was walking down the Hohe Strasse (= looking for someplace to have lunch, when I spotted something very unusual at that time--a Burger King on a cobblestone street.

That Burger King was brand new, or I would have seen it before. It was only a short distance from my workplace. I decided a hamburger might do just fine instead of a bratwurst, so I went in.

Since it was a new restaurant, they had a drawing. All you had to do was answer this terribly difficult question: How many slices of tomato are there in a Whopper? I opened my bun, counted mine, and wrote in "Zwei", which is German for two, and put the form in the box.

Then I ate my hamburger and forgot about it--I didn't even know what the prize was. A few months later, to my total shock, my prize arrived by registered mail. It was a gold nugget--an ounce or two, I can't remember--but the neatest thing I'd ever seen.It even came in a little chamois pouch.

Cool. I don't remember how much gold was worth right then, but it wasn't a fortune. Just a nice little conversation piece.

Several years later, I was living in Greece. The inflation was making it hard to make ends meet as a teacher. I needed some quick cash to tide me over... And guess what?

The price of gold had gone up, and that little nugget was worth quite a bit more than it had been, back in Germany. I have no idea what the moral of this story is, other than that sometimes the darnedest things happen.So if somebody gives you a sweepstakes card to fill out, just look under the bun.

When I was in elementary school, we won a TV/VCR combo in a Monopoly game at the grocery store. They were actually a pretty big deal back then. It was worth $700 at the time and was the biggest prize offered in the game.

$700 doesn't sound like much anymore due to inflation, but it was a pretty big deal back then.

Yes always little things that they offer. The last was out of a Jiffy Lube and I won two finish line tickets to the Pocono 500 last summer.

I haven't sadly....however I always seem to be the one that gets the phone call that says..... Telemarketer: "You have been chosen to receive an all expense paid trip to__________(insert exotic place here)! " Me: "Yeah and what does it costs me? " Telemarketer: "Nothing!

All you have to do is pack you bags! Are you ready to Go! " Me: "Ok and what does it cost me?"

Telemarketer: "Well, we have to charge the $2500 to your credit card..but you'll recieve $500 in hotel credit! It's a great deal! " Me: CLICK.

Sadly, I have not won anything of note. I'm hoping to win that dream home that HGTV gives away every year hahahahahahahaha yeah...okay but seriously, sweepstakes are those things that are really depressing. I play and never win.

Then I see tv news where someone has won something big and it was like their 3 jackpot in their lifetime or something. Some people win multiple times and others go their entire lives and never win anything (that would be me). So I usually don't play but maybe statistically the people that win enter everything.

With my luck, each time they won was the first time they had played anything.

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.