Oh gosh, hard to remember. I know I won a box of notecards at a seminar once. I didn't want to be bothered carrying them around so I "forgot" them on a table.

I mostly remember winning a bank when I was a kid. It looked like a rocket. You put a coin in a slot on the side and a spring zipped it up and into the nosecone. This was back in the '50s when everyone was rocket crazy.

They are forever selling chances on things at work but I never win a thing.

The oddest thing I have won was a 100.00 gift card at IKEA Orlando yesterday. Had to figure out what I could put in my buggy that would bring my total to 100.00 after I picked up the chair I was getting for grandson's Christmas present. If I spent 100.00 or more IKEA would give me another gift card worth 20.00. I went over the !00.00 or more requirement by .43 cent.I only paid the taxes on the chair and other items. Everything I took home was bought with the gift cards.

A Bali bra? When I was shopping for going off to college.

When I was a kid, I won a necktie for my father by winning a contest "Why My Dad is the Greatest" from a local department store. I was around 6 years old and wrote something and sent it in. My father treasured that tie!

But the best win was a couple of years ago when my husband and I won a new Ford Mustang at a drawing at the high school football game! It was a fundraiser for the band and we had bought 15 tickets.... gave 10 away to my husband's employees and kept the other 5 for ourselves. We didn't want the car so traded it for a used truck for our third son. It was very exciting when our name was drawn out of the huge hopper at the game!!

Grace

Well, I did win that big stainless steel pie server from the Libby Pumpkin contest for that sugar free pumpkin pudding thing.

When I was about 6 I went to a company picnic put on by my mother's employer, they were having a chicken BBQ. It got rained out, and I won 20 partially cooked chicken halves in a Bingo game. It would be fine now, but I wasn't so excited then, LOL.

Oh, and I won a county map two years ago at the County Christmas party. Guess who hands out those maps? Yup, that would be me. Ah well.....

Ashley won tickets to see the Wizard of Oz on stage, with Mickey Rooney as the Wizard and Ruth Buzzi as the Witch, because her sister sent in a story about how she saved her when she drowned. The contest was called "Heart, Brains and Courage" and they got their picture in the paper and tickets to see the play, because Ashley had pulled Amanda from the pool when she drowned then called 911 while I gave Amanda CPR. Ashley was 9 then. Does that count?

Annie

A huge basket of liquor worth well over a thousand dollars and at the time I didn't drink anything other than a sloe gin fizz once or twice a year. I gave most of it away.

Years ago I won a year long pass for two to a cinema along with a year pass for two to the health club next door. The cinema called to tell me that my name had been drawn, but since I had never been to that cinema I didn't believe them. They kept insisting that they had my name, address, phone number and other info about me. I refused the prize because I thought it was a joke. My DH (who was my boyfriend at the time) was at my apartment and kept telling me that it probably wasn't a joke and I should just accept it. Anyway, I never picked up the prizes and years later, after we were married, DH admitted that he had taken another girl out on a date while I was out of town. While she was in the bathroom he registered ME for the prize and that's how I won without ever going to that place!

LOL Annie, laughing at the chicken imagery and you as a kid. Talk about a disappointment! LOL!

Last year I won a granite? (or rather, granite-like) - some kind of stone, anyway! - cutting board and a bottle of steak sauce when my husband drew the winning ticket at a sportsman's banquet. So I guess I was the winner by default, really.

One time I won a portable CD player at an after-prom thing in high school. ACtually, the guy I was dating won it and gave it to me, so I guess I won that by default, too. LOL

OMG I just bought myself a flash drive on Saturday! You can save all your pictures, recipes, etc., on that instead of on CD's. All you do is plug it into the computer. Then if your computer crashes, you still have all your 'stuff'!!

I won a travel iron one time. I never EVER travel and I iron even less.

Years ago, maybe around 1985'ish, I cashed in a $20 bill at the Tropicana Casino in Las Vegas...dropped a single $1 token into a dollar slot machine & won $3,600. Bells, flashing lights, & sirens were going off & silver tokens were spewing from the tray all over the floor 'cause I couldn't scoop them into one of those cups fast enough. It gave me a hundred coins, I think, & I had to go to the cashier for the rest of the winnings. Very fun.

Then, about the same era, I won a 6' tall Christmas stocking filled with toys. It was the grand prize for throwing a perfect 300 bowling. That was a fluke & I was embarrassed. Others were so much better yet I kept throwing strike after strike after strike. By like the nineth strike tons of people had gathered behind me watching. Manangement came running over with a camera & I ended up on the front page of our local newspaper. Also got my name added to the wall placque. :)

Also won first place at a tavern Halloween dance contest. I won a bottle of champagne & a massage. Don't ask questions! LOL

/tricia

I won a mountain bike, but only problem it was unassembled with no instructions. One of Tai's bf's came over and worked on it forever. I finally donated it to an organization in Amarillo that took old bikes and renewed them for the holidays for gifts.

I won an aquamarine stone once. It was loose and I had to have it set. I didn't even know what I was entering, I filled out the entry blank and they called out my name 5 minutes later! Think they must've pulled it right off the top of the pile.

I won a cardboard Three Little Pigs playhoue when my son was a baby. That thing took up some real estate in our family room for about two years but it provided lots of fun.

I won a year's supply of milk (it was something like 52 coupons for a free gallon each, but they all expired after a year). We used up most of them but gave away a bunch at the end.

Won an Oskar food processor at a grand opening of WalMart about 25 years ago. That WalMart has long since closed, but I still use and love that Oskar.

I never win.........

But it sure is fun reading about everyone else!!
:+)

Deanna

At my new employee orientation when I started at the hospital I won a gallon jar of dill pickles.
(They showed some customer service oriented video of some guy and a pickle....it was very strange. And I answered a question about that goofy video so I won said jar of pickles...)

That was a couple of years ago and I still have them. Just haven't found an opportunity to open and consume a gallon of dill pickles, I guess! LOL

Oh...and in the 5th grade I won the class spelling bee. My prize was one free movie theater ticket and a popcorn ball. (as you can see I went to a very high-brow elementary school! LOL)

I enjoyed the popcorn ball but my folks couldn't afford to take all 5 of us to the movies, so never cashed in the ticket.

Linda

Ok-there are some nice prizes mentioned here! A car?! I'd probably fall over dead :) Much better than the crockpot!

Tracey

I went to my 20-year class reunion several, several years ago and they had door prizes. I won a box of freshly picked vegetables. OK, that wasn't really that odd considering it's a farming community (and I grew up on a farm). My mom was happy to put them to good use. I was luckier than my cousin, who won a 6-pack of Coke (in cans). One of the cans fell off in the parking lot after the reunion ended. It fell on her little toe and broke it.

I won a trip for four to Traverse City Michigan, including airfare, 2 condo's and all you can eat tickets. Pretty cool. It was over Christmas holiday so everyone had the week off. I still feel somewhat guilty that I didn't take my mom, dad and sister. It was an all expense paid trip for four, but I was 26 years old and wanted my friends along to party. I feel bad because my mom was never in an airplane and in retrospect I should have taken my family. But it was a nice prize and even though I regret my choice it was super nice to win a free trip.

Duane

We went to a fundraiser quiz night for a friend's club and all the prizes were donations from various businesses and organisations. The club was a computer-oriented one and almost everyone there with the exception of our table were trendy young things, about 19-21 y.o. We were well into our thirties then, as were our friends, and we had DD who was about 10 and an older guy who had come alone and was looking for a table to join at the door when we arrived, so we gathered him up (a good move, he knew a lot :-) ).
Almost all of the questions had something to do with the computer industry. They had a prize for the winners of each round of ten questions which was a book that had been donated by the local technical college, something about how to break into the film industry as a technician, as I recall. It was a handbook they must have been handing out the previous year because all of the info was dated. Our table won every single copy :-) so we each got our own useless book :-).
It was kind of funny to be the table of oldies beating the trendy youngsters at a computer quiz night :-D

I won $6 playing bridge last week. Does that count?
And a year ago I won the center piece at a luncheon...
Outside of that I NEVER win anything!
Linda C

I won a golden hammer at a company picnic way back in my 20Âs. I was the only girl and beat all the guys getting a nail into a 2x4 first. My then DH was mortified but I had been hammering since I was five years old when I helped my dad build a house. Dad said that house would never fall down I put so many nails in it. LOL

When I worked at the studio I won a Mickey Mouse hat with silver ears at a party under the animation building. We were celebrating year end closing and no partying was allowed so we were down in the tunnels. I won because I got all the thousands of W 2Âs send to the post office a week early. The hat was a prop from the silver anniversary of the Mickey Mouse club special they had just finished filming.

Claudia

Wow Colleen, an outdated techno book? Ugh!

Annie, what a proud and wonderful memory mixed with what must have been the most horrible time of your life.

DH belongs to a civic service organization (Exchange Club) and each year at the holiday party they have a drawing where you buy tickets and if your number is called you win a wrapped present. I've been the proud recipient of a sheet of freezer cubes (for picnics), a squish pillow, a terrarium and some other useless items. The best experience was just this summer we were at a get-together from work and after dinner someone pulled out a dice game. It was total luck, after about 2 hours, I won the jackpot of $123! Not only was I stunned, I couldn't stop laughing! Other than that, a couple of centerpieces.

Well, not me, but my girlfriend won a leg of lamb once when she was a young girl, LOL. They were at a German fest in Shutzen Park in North Bergen, NJ in the summer in the fifties and she and her mother had to take the bus back to Brooklyn in the summer heat with a big whole leg of lamb on their laps :)

I also won a shower radio for singing Dean Martins' Everybody Loves Somebody Sometime on the radio. They used it for their commercial! And that came with 40 boxes of frozen breakfasts which the d.j. was supposed to be able to visit my office and cook for everyone. Since there wasn't enough for everyone in the office the manager wouldn't allow him to do that so he just send me the coupons to purchase the frozen entrees from the grocery store. They were pretty awful, but it was fun to win another contest.

Probably the stupidest thing I won was I heard a 'call now' on a radio station and I called and won. Wow! 4 tickets to a Bridal Expo....how exciting! I couldn't give those away. Then this summer I did the same thing and won tickets to a play 2 hours away that I could care less about. Why do I enter things I'm not interested in? Who knows? Just crazy I guess.

Duane

a WMCA Good Guys Sweatshirt - not odd, but anyone who grew up in Brooklyn, NY in the 1950s and 60s was envious.

Helene

Well, I also won a "completely restored" John Deere lawn tractor from the local Old Engine club a couple of years ago. It ran for about 15 minutes then blew up. LOL

And now, the real prize. Elery and I went to a Taste of Home Cooking Show, he got tickets as a gift from his sister. One of the sponsors was a woman's shelter and a local builder donated a $1,500 island, beautiful handmade cabinetry with some kind of composite counter top that looks like granite. Raffle tickets were sold, proceeds went to the women's shelter. Elery bought 3 tickets, gave them to me.

Yup, the island will be delivered to Elery's next week, we tried to sell it back to the builder because there's no place in either of our houses to install it. I think we've decided to keep it and put it into the new house when we build in a couple of years. It's a very, very nice prize but who the heck wins a kitchen island?

Annie

Helene - I'm envious in 2008! I loved Joe O'Brien and Benny and the other Good Guys!

Annie - wowee!

Annie, you asked "who the heck wins a kitchen island?"

Answer: Someone who won 20 partially baked chickens when they were a child!

I think you have now earned the "most unusual win" crown!

I've won several odd things, but I guess the oddest was when I entered a contest in Seventeen magazine when I was about 15. I filled out a questionnaire with a lot of gossipy questions about celebrities, and I won third prize, which was an autographed album by Dino, Desi, and Billy. That was back in the mid 1960s.

Lars