6.30.2008

Pay It Forward Contest, minus the stupid flip flops

So, Swistle had this great idea to do this continuous Pay It Forward contest, and I am soooo in! It's pretty easy. Here's how it works:

--Leave me a comment. That's all it takes to enter.
--My contest ends July 4th. No worries that it is a holiday. I won't be announcing the winner until Sunday, the 6th.
--I will throw all your names in a hat and let my girl randomly pick a winner.
--I will send the winner a package after I go shopping at the Dollar section of Target (KIDDING!) .
--The only thing the winner needs to do is Pay It Forward by then hosting their own PiF contest on their blog.

Sounds fun, huh?

When I told my mom about this, she said, 'Wait, this isn't like the flip flop thing, is it?' and burst out laughing.
My response: 'Oh.my.gosh. I forgot all about that! I soooo have to blog about that!'

A couple of years ago, while living in Springtown, and simultaneously biting my nails to the quick out of boredom and loneliness, a friend sent me this chain letter. However, it wasn't of the recipe or dishtowel variety, it involved flip flops. All you had to do was mail a pair of flip flops to the person at the top of the list, and then send the list out, with your name on it, to 5 people. Then they mailed you flip flops, and put their name on the list, and..you get my drift?
So, being the shoe whore that I am (yes, yes, I am a shoe whore as well as a book whore), I fell for it.
I went to Old Navy and bought a cute pair of flip flops and mailed them out. And then I waited for my flip flops to arrive.
And waited.
And waited.
And.
Waited.

Each day, it became a joke for my mother to call and say 'Did you get your flip flops?' and then hang up in a fit of giggles.

Finally, I received a package in the mail. I tore open the envelope, and....
the flip flops were purple and pink, and totally not my size.

A couple of days later, another package arrived. These were black, and had cherries on the top part. Big, plump cherries. WTF?

I never received another pair.

My friend Kristy, who is a sucker just like me, fell for the stupid chain letter. Bought cute flip flops at Target, and waited. After a few weeks, she got a pair of flip flops in the mail. They were bright pink and had this humongous red flower/bow on the top. Like, so big it covered your whole foot.

That really made my mom giggle.

It just annoyed me.

And then my mom threw her logic at us, which surprisingly, was pretty logical, damn it:

'You could have saved a lot of money, and just bought your own pair of cute flip flops.'

Damn it.

So, my promise to you is that I will not send you stupid, ugly flip flops. If I happen to send you flip flops, I promise they will be of the normal and cute varieties (Unless you are a guy, of course, and then they will be of the normal and simple varieties).

Tell me: What was the silliest thing you fell for?

41 comments:

SLynnRo said...

I'm so cynical I rarely fall for things. Once in high school, I showed up to a party where everyone managed to trick me into thinking one of my friends was completely passed out and not breathing because he was so drunk. Which is just mean actually.

Barb said...

My friend's husband fooled me (non-gullible me!) into thinking he could honk the horn from the passenger headrest in his car. I fell for it for about 20 seconds, but it was long enough to embarrass me. Stupid Ben.

Misty said...

Count me in on the pay if forward fun.

The flip flop letter. I HATE the flip flop letter. Eeeegads!

Anonymous said...

I fell for the snail-mail version of the recipe exchange years ago. I never got a single recipe.

Now when I get the email version sent to me, I have a word doc with 6 recipes, I hit reply-all and send them to everyone hoping no one even considers forwarding that stupid email again. Ever.

MzEll said...

In high school I was suckered into participating in a crud war weekend. 3 days, covered in various digusting food particles with no bath. Yeah Right! The girls found a kew to the bathroom and took showers with tiny bars of soap. Never Again.

Missy said...

I can't think of anything. Maybe I never figured out that everything I feel for was fake!

Amelia Sprout said...

A chain underwear thing, kind of like the flip flops.

I've fallen for plenty of other things I'm sure, but I've blocked them out, I hate that feeling of being gullible. Its worse than being angry or wrong.

Anonymous said...

When I was young I signed up to work for this great company...the product was good, but the sales job was a total sham. Ugh.

Heather said...

Well you did get 2 pairs of flipflops out of it, for your one pair. Maybe you should have saved them for the next time you got the flipflop letter, to have something to mail back out. =P

I fell for this entire thing on the internet called "autosurfing". And have spent 4 years wasting time on it.

moo said...

Ah, chain letters.

I'm not a gullible person but! I AM very superstitious. So, no chain letters for me, please. It'll make me hyperventilate just thinking about breaking it.

Kristie said...

I'm sure I've fallen for things before but I can't recall anything. I'm so lame that I never participate in much.

Emily said...

Oh my gosh, that story is hilarious.

The silliest thing I ever fell for (wait for it, I am going to look so dumb) involved e-mail in Jr. High. I thought Prince William was so cute. A male friend of mine had the internet and I didn't yet. He actually convinced me that he could e-mail Prince William for me. So I wrote this little note and a couple of days later my friend brought back an "e-mail" from the Prince. And naieve me believed it!!! Oh my gosh. . . I bought it hook line and sinker. So much I wrote a reply and the "Prince" replied again. Then my friend told me the truth. Talk about feeling stupid. . .

Fiona Picklebottom said...

I can't remember a particular thing. I'm sure it will come to me as soon as I click "Publish Your Comment." Because that's how things work for me.

Stacy said...

When I first started driving...I was told my car needed to have the blinker fluid refilled. I still can't believe I fell for that one.

Anonymous said...

My husband fell for one of those "healthy goop beverage" pyramid schemes. He begged for the 50 buck start up, got his little start up kit, looked at me and went, "oh." and I said "well, there's a lesson learned"

guh.

La Petite Chic said...

Ha!! That is a great story. I always do those recipe chain e-mails and never get any in return. It completely bums me out. I'm such a gullible person but it's hard for me to come up with something. I'm sure my husband could share plenty of stories :)

Heather said...

Oh man, I hated those chain letter things. I did one with kids' books once. I was supposed to get something like 36 books. I didn't get even one!

Anonymous said...

Hello! I would love to get some flip flops, although I would probably never wear them in this London weather...

SP said...

A phone call saying I had won a boat but they needed my credit card number to pay for shipping it. It was my freshman year of college and the very first charge on my very first credit card. Obviously, the boat didn't exist but the money sure disappeared.

Janice said...

I'm sad to say I'm like slynnro. I don't fall for things, I usually check them out or ignore them.

Britni said...

I fall for things that are cheap every once in a while. Like a website that said it would find me thousands of dollars in scholarships for school. Oops.

Jenny Grace said...

I've fallen for some pretty silly boys.

Anonymous said...

I don't fall for things. I'm pretty sure I've missed out on some amazing deals because I'm too damned suspicious for my own good.

Anonymous said...

This was a great question to ask your commenters, I'm having way too much fun reading these stories!

Here are just a few of mine:

-TOTALLY fell for the "Did you know that the word "gullible" isn't in the dictionary?" line. Got out my dictionary. Looked it up. Felt dumb.

-Had just finished watching a movie back in high school with a group of friends. One of them asked me if I would get up and rewind the dvd (you know, like in the olden days when you had to rewind a vhs tape before you returned it to the video store). I was like, sure. Then spent a few moments trying to figure out how exactly one rewinds a dvd. Felt dumb.

-Two of my friends tried to convince me that this building near our homes growing up was an elevator testing building. As in, they test out elevators there. This is the worst because I still don't know if that's true or not. Do such buildings exist? I may never know...

k's mama said...

Although I'm not proud to say it, I've had a lot of gullible moments. One of the first that I remember is from when I was 4 or 5 years old. I saw a commercial for Chips Ahoy cookies with sprinkles inside - the catch phrase was "There's a party in every bite." I got so excited, and asked my mom to buy them for me. Of course, she couldn't resist and I was very disappointed when I took a bite and didn't have an instant party. I think there may have been tears involved.

My gullible-ness has just progressed from there.

Aimee @ Smiling Mama said...

Have you ever gone on a snipe hunt? I have!

jenny said...

um, probably my hubby. :)

Unknown said...

This is the opposite, but I convinced my now-husband that I had a tattoo. heh heh.

Jenny H. said...

Halloween circa 1995? I worked in an awesome restaurant in Buckhead as a waiter/bartender. There were only five of us. The other four convinced me we were all going to dress up. So I went to a costume company and RENTED a FRENCH MAID'S costume. Seriously. Got myself all tarted up, hopped in a cab and went to work. Where not one of the JERKS I worked with were dressed up. Bastards.

I did make awesome tips that night though... and got LOTS of free drinks when we all went out after work!

Anonymous said...

Fell for the whole "nah, the second baby is never as colicky as the first baby" story.

ya ya's mom said...

I fell for my "friends" telling me Devils Tower (in Wyoming) had an elevator on the backside. Talk about gullible!!!

Catherine said...

That I was going on a group date, when it was really a one on one situation with a creepy guy.

Kelsey said...

I once did a thing just like that but it was for UNDERWEAR. No kidding. And I actually sent some, but never got any.

(Duh. Because all my friends were horrified that I'd sent them underwear mail.)

Ginny said...

I'm dying over the flip flop thing, lol. It does sound fun if it worked & you got cute ones back. Oh well, sorry you went through that. At least you have a cool story to tell, lol.

Anonymous said...

I got a letter like the flip flop thing, but it was for dish towels. I didn't do it, though - but only because I was lazy.

Laura said...

I hate those chain letters! The last time I fell for something was when someone told me they were calling from our cc company... but they weren't, they were just smart. Luckily, no harm was done!

Michelle said...

Too funny! The only chain thing I'll ever do is a recipt forwarding one, as it's free and I can always use more recipes! I love the flip flop one though :)

Anonymous said...

The silliest thing I've fallen for? When I would sing in the car and my brother would ask, "who sings this song?" and I would tell him the artist's name and he would say, "let's keep it that way."

Over and over again.

Anonymous said...

Hmmmm, maybe I am too cynical but I always assume things are scams.

Blondie said...

I fell for a book thing like your flip-flop thing. Never got any books... they were supposed to be kids' books, and the letters had your kids' names and ages... bummer.

Mommy Daisy said...

I can't think of anything, but if I win you can totally send me cute flip-flops. I'm not too picky. ;)