It”s been one of the luckiest years of my life. I won a $50 meat package from Lakeview Market and Deli, courtesy of owner Kenny Parlett, at a Lakeport Chamber of Commerce dinner a couple of months back and I”ve won a few quarters on the drawing we have at the end of the weekly Rotary Club meeting.
It may not sound like much, but I have never been one of those lucky people who win big raffle ticket prizes or the lottery, and there has been no shortage of tickets I”ve purchased for the benefit of many different organizations.
There are some people who are just luckier than others when it comes to winning stuff. Take Michel Horton, for instance. He lives in my home state of Kansas. The other day an Associated Press news item showed up that sounded interesting, so I pulled it up on my screen.
It was about Topeka, Kansas resident, Michel Horton, who, in the space of 10 short days, in three separate contests, won two new cars and tickets to a Kansas City Chiefs football game. Wow!
My winnings this year seem pretty unsubstantial when compared to Horton”s. First, he found out that he was the winner of a $28,800 Mitsubishi Lancer. The Lancer was part of a Bic lighter promotion that he had entered. Ten days later he was notified that he had won a well over $30,000, 2008 “Bon Jovi Special Edition” Saturn Outlook, from a Saturn dealership in Topeka. That win was pretty cool because, not only did it include the car, there was also a Bon Jovi guitar and gold-plated Bon Jovi records, to boot.
Sandwiched in between winning the two cars, Horton learned that he had won tickets to see the Chiefs play at Arrowhead Stadium. Right now, the Chiefs are only about one rung higher in excitement than going to see the Detroit Lions, but if the opponent was a good team, it would be worth the short drive from Topeka to Kansas City, especially with the tickets being free.
There is only one bad thing about winning contests. It”s a shame that, even when you win something, you have to pay the tax bill. Because of this fact, instead of accepting the Mitsubishi Lancer, Michel Horton decided to take the cash value instead. That way, he was able to pay the income taxes and personal property taxes on his winnings.
If someone ever says to you that there is no such thing as luck, just tell them about Michel Horton. If I had been Horton during his streak, I think I would have spent my whole paycheck on lottery tickets. The stars appeared to have been perfectly aligned for him.
Even Richard Wiseman, one of the most knowledgeable persons alive, when it comes to the subject of luck, would have to confess that Horton is a lucky man. Wiseman wrote the book on luck, literally. It is titled “The Luck Factor: Changing Your Luck, Changing Your Life: The Four Essential Principles”.
In a 2007 interview Wiseman said, “Chance events are like winning the lottery. They”re events over which we have no control, other than buying a ticket. They don”t consistently happen to the same person.”
That last sentence is the key. In this case, they did consistently happen to the same person. It proves to me that Michel Horton, at least during a 10-day period in October of 2008, was an extremely lucky person. Wiseman went on to say, “When people say that they consistently experience good fortune, I think that, by definition, it has to be because of something they are doing.”
My guess is that Michel Horton is a person who enters a large number of prize drawings. It would be interesting to follow up on him in the future to see if he continues to win, or if it was just a 10-day lucky streak.
Gary Dickson is the publisher of the Record-Bee. He can be reached at gdickson@record-bee.com or called direct at 263-5636 ext. 24.
