This article is classified "Partly real, partly fictional"
"YOU MAY HAVE ALREADY TEN MILLION DOLLARS." We've all seen this. Every
once in a while, you get a letter in the mail which says "You, Gerry
Canavan (or whatever your name happens to be), are completely guaranteed
to be the winner of the Publisher's Clearinghouse (or Reader's Digest, or
Sweepstakes Clearinghouse, or whatever the particular contest happens to
be) contest and are completely guaranteed to receive TEN MILLION DOLLARS!"
"Great!" you think to yourself. "I've won! I'm a winner!" But when you
open the envelope you discover that they've sneakily written the words
"If you return the winning entry." You've been fooled into opening a
worthless piece of junk mail!
But still, it MIGHT be possible. You MIGHT have won the ten million.
It passes through your mind every time you get one; would they go to
the trouble of actually PRINTING my name of the letter if I hadn't won?
The often romanized image of Ed McManhon strolling up to your doorway
carrying an oversize check -- could it ever happen? Is it real? Or is
it an insidious plot to sell magazines?
THE FACTS:
1) No one has actually knows a winner. Despite the fact that
every one of these contests has a list of at least six
previous winners, no one KNOWS one. Could this be true?
Somebody in America MUST know one of the winners!
2) How much money do these magazine companies have? How can
they give away 10 million dollars per prize? All they're
doing is selling magazines. Is this that profitable, and if
so, how come the guy down at the newsstand isn't giving away
10 million dollar prizes?
3) What's the tactical advantage of giving away 10 million
dollars to sell a few magazines? Is the average American
saying, "well, I normally wouldn't want to read this magazine,
but since they're giving away millions of dollars, I think
I'll go for it." Are we, as a nation, this stupid?
4) Has a contest ever actually ended? It appears that every
time you get one of these letters, you've simply made it into
"the next level of competition." I must be in the ten
millionth level of competition by now.
THE ANSWER:
So what is the answer? The only evidence we have that they are real,
legitimate, contests, is a quickee commercial right after the Super Bowl,
in which *supposedly* they presented someone a woman with 10 million
dollars. But can we trust a commercial? If we believe this one, do we
believe that little beer cans are really running around during the Bud
Bowl? The answer is a simple, two letter word beginning with 'n' and
ending in 'o'. This article does not necessarily reflect the opinions
of Project Galactic Guide.
If you wish to sue somebody, please do not sue Project Galactic Guide.