For This Lady, Winning Prizes Is No Contest

If you’re one of those people who doesn’t like reading about other people always winning contests because you never do, then this item may grieve you.

Meet Anne Bridges, contest winner.

Some people clip coupons. She cops contests.

Anne, who lives in Chula Vista, doesn’t even try to remember all the drawings and sweepstakes and contests and give-aways she has entered. Better to forget what you’ve entered, so you don’t lose any sleep over it wondering, she said.

In fact, she even has trouble remembering all the stuff she has won since first getting smitten by sweepstakes several years ago.

Granted, not everything is worth remembering, like the three tubes of toothpaste, Whoopee! One week she won a wok. She was delivered a deck of playing cards once, and was sent a set of flatware, a skin cleansing machine and a sample pack of jellies and jams from Knott’s Berry Farm. She figures she’s got a zillion jellies and jams in her pantry. The strawberry’s gone.

Once, she won $7 from a Seagram’s drawing that was pitched as its $7,777 contest. “Guess who came in last place,” she said.

Then there was the ski cap (she doesn’t ski), a couple of tote bags (she does tote), $25 from Ziploc and a silver ingot from a wine outfit.

She’s won some nicer stuff too. A Weber kettle. A VCR. A Sony Watchman TV. A Nikon 35mm camera. A $100 gift certificate for Von’s. A $300 gift certificate at a women’s dress shop.

And she’s won some real nice stuff. There was the four-day vacation to Expo in Vancouver, including air fare, hotel accommodations, bus transportation and admission to the fair.

Last year, there was the cruise aboard the Pacific Princess down to the Mexican Riviera. That was a Southwest Airlines/Hertz drawing, which they entered three times.

And next month, she and her husband, Richard, a retired Navy pilot, leave for 10 glorious days in Hawaii. Thank you, Von’s.

So what’s the trick?

“You enter, and you enter again and you enter again,” she said. She figures they entered the Von’s drawing 30 to 40 times in winning the Hawaii vacation.

And, to make sure no contests go un-entered, she subscribes to a couple of newsletters that summarize all of the current contests, prizes and rules. You don’t even need to leave your home to enter most of them. Just have a bunch of stamps, some 3-by-5 cards and a pen.

“They say you should spend an hour a night or so entering these things,” Bridges said. “I don’t. I’ve got better things to do with my time.” Like, pack for Hawaii.

Some hints: Put your 3-by-5 entry, for whatever, inside a No. 10-size envelope. And send a bunch of entries to family or friends from less-populated states for them to enter on your behalf. She says contest semifinalists are picked from all the states based on postmarks and you’ve got a better chance of being in the final lot if your entry is from a sparser state.

For all of her advice and tricks, Anne still hasn’t won a Publisher’s Clearinghouse sweepstakes.

“Oh, but I will someday,” she said. “I will.”

But the Place Is a Dump

The San Marcos Boys’ and Girls’ Club held a fund-raising auction the other day, and one of the goodies that was grabbed up, for $600, was a gourmet, catered lunch for six.

The guests will be picked up by limousine and taken to the, uh, San Marcos landfill. The garbage dump.

Playing host to the “Lunch at the Dump” are Mashburn Sanitation, which knows the place pretty well, and Catering Concepts, which has, not unexpectedly, never before catered an affair there.

“It’ll be somewhat of a challenge,” offered Marti Kittmer, part owner of the catering firm. “I mean, we’re talking full china service, crystal, silver and white table cloths at a garbage dump. But there’s a place up on the hill that, were it not for the dump, is actually quite pretty.”

Terry Chamberlin is one of the six people who joined together for the successful bid.

“Heck, I’ve never been to the landfill,” she said. “But everybody’s got their idea of an elegant setting, and they say we’ll get a tour of the landfill after lunch, with a commentary by Jim Mashburn on ‘The Wonderful World of Waste.’ ”

Accent Is on the Cash

The Sail America Foundation is stumping for bucks to help Dennis Conner bring the America’s Cup back home, and a new TV spiel, appearing from here to Washington, depicts a scene something like this:

There’s Dennis, sitting outside the San Diego Yacht Club, being approached by three Australian sailors making wisecracks like, “You’re not so dandy now, Yankee doodle,” and a reference to “a blunder Down Under.”

Dennis turns to the camera and remarks, “Remember, what goes down must come up.” Then, the voice-over makes a pitch for money for Sail America.

One of the actors is an Australian from Los Angeles. The other two are San Diego attorneys Greg Stacey and Rob Ayling, who actually bristle at the suggestion that they’re Australian. They’re New Zealanders.

“In fact, I’ve got a case of champagne saying that New Zealand will win the America’s Cup before America does,” Ayling said. “And now here I am, pretending to be an Australian, just to help raise money for Sail America and Conner.

“I guess,” he sighed, “I’m selling out everything I stand for, for $100 and the glare of publicity.”