What Are the Odds?

My daughter Neva seems to have somewhat of a lucky streak. At the young age of 6, she has already won prizes in about half of the raffles held at her school -- various cakes, easter eggs, a backpack.

The other day we received some scratch-and-save coupons in the mail for a local restaurant. If you presented the coupon to your server, you could save anywhere from $5 to $50 off the bill for your meal. We see these types of scratch cards more and more these days. Department stores, fitness clubs and now, apparently, restaurants all try to lure you in with the promise of big savings that you ultimately never see. I don't care about a 5% savings off my $30 purchase. That barely buys me a coffee for my efforts. The mystery and temptation around them, not to mention the "forbidden fruit" of scratching the card before you make your purchase, just frustrates me and I tend to ignore them and let the kids play with them.

And so it was with the coupons that came the other day for the local restaurant. Neva grabbed a penny and began unmasking the mystery. It was pure delight for her and pure torture for me.

Both cards revealed a $50 coupon!

Happy sweeping!

Kathleen Gunther
Editor, ContestHound.com