My mailbox has been besieged lately by letters from sweepstakes contests. These letters tell me that I might be the recipient of several million dollars or a lot of wonderful prizes like a new house, a new car, unlimited groceries for a year and that type of thing.

Of course, we all know perfectly well that I’m not going to win anything other than the opportunity to receive thousands of other mailings telling me the exact same thing. Statistically, I have a better chance of being hit dead-on by a meteorite than winning the Publisher’s Clearinghouse Sweepstakes.

I’m not exactly sure how I got on the mailing list for all of these wonderful mailings. But I certainly enjoy scratching off all of that silver covering with the only money I do have — a couple of pennies and, if I’m lucky, a spare quarter or two.

I always know when I begin scratching these things that I’m going to be in the running for the largest cash jackpot or the best prize. These little cards they keep sending me always say that only a small number of people will actually be in the running for the grand prizes.

They try to deceive me into thinking that I might not have the winning combination or the right number. After all, “only a select few will have the right combination,” as one of the mailings said.

Apparently, my parents, both sets of my grandparents, my brother, my mother-in-law and a dozen of my closest friends all have the right combination. We are the “select few” that these mailings talk about. Also included in this “select few” are millions of other people who all have the rare “winning combination.”

Who do these people think they are fooling? Certainly not you and I. But there are some people out there who honestly believe that they are the grand prize winner whenever that specially colored envelope comes in the mail.

There is an elderly man who has been in the news lately who is one of the believers. This man flew all the way to Florida to collect his grand prize, only to find out that he was only in the running.

I can see how this man was confused. The envelopes these mailings come in specifically state that “___ (insert your name here) ___ , you are our grand prize winner. Congratulations on winning our $10 million jackpot.”

Then you open up the envelope and discover that you are not the jackpot winner, that you have to buy something first or have to send something else in. Of course, all of these things you have to send in require a stamp. That’s thirty-two cents per envelope, and the average contest requires you send in a dozen envelopes with a half-dozen special stickers to place on each one.

Why doesn’t the post office stop these mass mailings? The answer to that question is painfully simple — because the post office makes tons of money from these sweepstakes contests. Not only does the post office collect from the money people spend on stamps to send their worthless replies in, but they milk the people who run the sweepstakes contests. It’s a no-lose situation for the post office.

It’s also a no-lose situation for the people who run the sweepstakes. Out of every dozen envelopes they send out to the public, maybe one person will order the merchandise they are hawking (for example, Publisher’s Clearinghouse sells magazines). That amounts to a lot of money for everybody involved.

The people getting screwed in this deal are the unwary, like the elderly man who flew to Florida. These people get their hopes up that they might win some free money or free prizes. Then their hopes and dreams are shattered.

So, I hope the elderly man wins his lawsuit against Publisher’s Clearinghouse. I hope he gets his money out of those heartless bastards. Maybe then they will stop filling my mailbox with their worthless prize advertisements.

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Ben Jones is a sophomore in English from Ankeny.