h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

ever won/got for free/been suprised to recieve??

I once had twelve bottles of shampoo plus some weird conditioner arrive in the post. For a competition that I have no recolection of ever entering (I rarely enter competitions).
Certianly the weirdest thing I've ever won.

I once went to an ATM machine to find 2000 kroners were already sticking out of it. Apparently taking it was a crime, but I haven´t been caught yet.

I once won an iPod.

Y.

Two tickets to the premiere of the Hitchhiker's movie, train tickets there and back, and overnight accomodation in a 5-star hotel across the square.

That's just incredibly crass.

My gran left me a pair of horns off'f one of those hairy ginger cows. Does that count?

The only thing I ever won was a box of after eight mints for getting dressed up as a ninja turtle.

I won a boxed-set of Hitchikers read by Douglas Adams in some random women's magazine once (I still have them)

I won a bottle of Hai Karate aftershave in a tombola in 1979. I've had a pathological fear of tombolas and aftershave ever since. Emotionally scarred I was.

I won a box of a year's supply of tissues and toiletries for the bathroom, etc. Second prize it was. First prize was a car.

Two tickets to see Iggy and the Stooges last September. At a really gorgeous old theater with general admission seating, so the view was fantastic!

Not the best or most awsome, but I once got a parcel, for christmas, that contained a sponge, a textured pottery fish and a chorizo sausage. That maxed out the surprise bit. Mad aunty*, I got a collection of pictures of urns off her once.

Aunty, I don't say aunty I say anty, damn it.

I got a personal SEP field generator free with a ticket to a LARP event once. It works beautifully, but only in specific places and on four weekends a year.

Sweet!

I won a kids party in the cafe at Mothercare when I was about nine because I made up some crap about making santa Ice Chips and Snow Cakes or something if he came to tea...

The party food was awful but the balloons were fun.

I dont tend to win things much.

1. I won a prize in our school raffle when I was 9.

It turned out to be a showercurtain. My mum and dad bought it off me It was hugely exciting getting my name read out as they picked out the tickets though

2. We got a cheque out of the blue for £430 a couple of months ago from the conveyancers we use to buy our house. Apparently it was money left over from the buy that they found when auditing. We would have been none the wiser had they never sent this money. This was very

3. My brother bought us a pretty damn nice dining table last year when we bought the house. It was absurdly generous and I'm still a bit embarassed and hugely grateful.

we got £800 back as a refund of council tax

check your address on the VOA website and if you are a higher band than similar houses in your area appeal to the VOA for rebanding

its well worth it

When I was a student, I was going through a particularly lean spell. I hadn't been able to work as I'd busted my knee playing rugby and I was flat broke. I had about 20p to my name and the only food in the house was a twice-used teabag and a couple of sprouting potatoes. I was slumped on the couch contemplating walking 14 miles on a busted leg to my friend's house to cadge a meal when the gas man knocked at the door to empty the meter. I showed him where it was in the kitchen and returned to my misery on the couch. I didn't even get up when he left. About an hour later I decided to try & wring one more cup of tea out of the teabag & went through to the kitchen. There on the bunker was a big pile of 50p pieces There was £12 and I assumed the gas man had forgotten them. I grabbed the money and jumped on a bus to my friend's house. It was only £12 but I felt like a king.

My friend explained that gas meters routinely overcharge and the gas man had just left behind the amount that was owed to me.

I'll never forget the sight of those 50p pieces glinting in the sunlight from the kitchen window, a totally unexpected windfall just when I needed it most

I won a laptop,

>> I'll never forget the sight of those 50p pieces glinting in the sunlight from the kitchen window...<<



I'll just grin and smile and be pleased for you then.
No point in turning this delightful thread into another
'there is a god!' debate. But there is something about being
young and hungry that seems to set strange beneficial events
in motion. Back in those days my friends would often say things
like 'the lord will provide'. We were all theists of course but
we 'believed' that something would indeed see us through. And
'it' always did. Food, money, cars, girls, backstage passes,
just seemed to fall into our laps.


~jwf~

Most exciting thing my family has ever received by post...

Back in the 80s... A padded envelope comes through the door.

Addressed to 'the occupier"
Postmark - Belfast
Grease marks on the outside
Envelope fairly heavy, strangely balanced and seemingly containing a box

Now, take those facts and add one more... Two of the household were serving members of the armed forces at the time and you end up with the packet in a bucket in the back garden with a man from the bomb squad turning up half an hour later...

He xrays the package and to top it all, parts of the package appear to be metal - impervious to x-rays...

On with the armoured suit and helmet and he opens the package in the back garden (we were well out of the way by this time)


Ruddy thing turns out to be free samples of various toiletries some of which were in foil-wrapped packaging... And a bottle of some kind of cream which had leaked - hence the greasy envelope.


That morning took ten years off of my life!

>> We were all theists of course...<<

Looks like the gods are playing tricks with me.


I'm sure I typed 'atheists' in post 18 but the gods
knicked my 'A' and may have left y'all under the
wrong impression.
I am agnostic, notwithstanding my continued belief
that 'something' protects idiots and young children
and provides for hungry young students.


~jwf~