Is your Postman a comper?I’m often asked if being a postman has any hidden advantages when it comes to comping. My reply is that yes it does and thank Heavens they are hidden or else I’d probably be serving a lengthy custodial sentence. But quite apart from swaying the odds in my favour I have to say the huge opportunities for mischief are almost as important.
Incidentally, are any of you aware that Postman Pat isn’t the innocent, helpful old duffer he cunningly portrays himself as in Greendale? In fact he’s a ruthless killing machine who is only here looking for lucrative opportunities on behalf of the Japanese Mafia. It’s true. You all know the Freemasons have rituals that identify each other, like rolling up a trouser leg, doing silly handshakes and God knows what other oddities. Well the Yakuza chop off their fingers to show allegiance, and more often atonement, to the cause. Next time Pat is on the telly, check out his hands. Definitely a couple of missing digits there unless my mathematics are well askew.
Besides which, how many posties do you know with enough clout to have a personalised number plate on the work’s van and permission to take their cat to work. No, a very sinister character in my eyes who should’ve been deported many years ago.
Anyway, I’ve no intention of amputating my index fingers, or any of the others for that matter, because my own specialised field of skulduggery demands full dexterity. We all have our comping kits when we trawl the shops don’t we, pens, sticky labels, postcards and the like. Well I’m no different when I go to work. Many is the time I’ve emptied a pillar box and it’s been an absolute treasure trove of free entries and boundless opportunities of a prize. Yep, absolute kids stuff - just look for that magic word ‘COMPETITION’ on a postcard or sealed down envelope, flip it over and with a deft and well-practiced manoeuvre insert one’s CaTone gummed label neatly over the original.
They say the best ideas are often the simplest ones and this has reaped me untold goodies down the years. I would like to say at this point that I do sincerely thank those of you that decorate entries. You can imagine that when the boxes are bulging and I’ve hardly a minute to catch my breath, it really helps me to sort the wheat from the chaff if there’s fluorescent butterflies, stars and stripes or wonderful drawings to catch my eye.
Quite often, especially in local comps, I might have already had seventy six goes because I can coerce a workmate to drop my entries in for free. In these circumstances the dodgy overlap technique becomes irrelevant and I might concentrate on just nobbling the opposition. Because I pride myself on imagination and inventiveness I wouldn’t dream of just throwing rival entries straight down the nearest drain. No, I’m more one for a bit of creativity. Just the other week I found a postcard entry on which the comper had correctly answered the question, “What was Hitler’s first name”? I swiftly changed the response to ‘Heil’ and immediately increased my chances of a holiday to Berlin.
Wrong answers are so much simpler than right ones and I’ve had Winston Churchill scoring cup winning goals at Wembley, Saddam Hussain presenting Blue Peter and Prince Charles marrying Elton John. I’ve also had a LOT of prizes as the other entrants are disqualified en masse. Now I know some of you are probably thinking at this point that I mustn’t have a shred of conscience. Well that’s totally wrong, I do have a shred I can assure you and I console myself with the fact the judges are spared the sheer tedium of consistently correct answers.
Needless to say all this slight bending of the rules has resulted in a few close calls when customers have caught me red handed being manipulative. I have to concede that it’s not every postman who needs a tube of glue, scissors and a marker pen to empty the boxes. I tend to treat it as an occupational hazard, albeit an unconventional one, but I do have a favourite technique to get back at the interfering old busybodies. I’ll ingratiate myself over a period of weeks by maybe taking some Brasso on my round to clean up their gates. Or be fastidious about sweeping leaves off their drives, you know, anything above and beyond the call of duty which will wipe the slate clean and leave them in my debt. Yep, you have to be a real psychologist to deliver the mail these days!
Then one cold, dark morning I’ll turn up at No 25, extremely early, confident in the knowledge the residents have had a skinful the night before. After nearly taking the door off its hinges and scaring the living daylights out of them, I’ll very pleasantly ask if they’ll take the parcel I’m holding in for No 23. Everyone says Yes under those conditions, believe me, I think it’s the trauma and disorientation. It’s only when they’ve finally rubbed the sleep from their eyes and regained some control over their nervous system that they realise the parcel is for number 23 ……………….. in a street about five miles away. Well, that’ll teach’ em to be presumptuous.
I did think I excelled myself though in eliminating 95%+ of the would-be prize winners in the recent PG Tips, build a contraption promotion. It was fantastic to read of all those inventors putting devices together that were an authentic mix of tubes and panels, switches and dials. Anyway, some of you might remember getting an equally authentic letter through the post telling you of a change of address for your entries. Sorry, but if you do a bit of research you’ll discover the addies don’t belong to Handling Houses, they’re connected with senior politicians, foreign dignitaries and members of MI5. Don’t expect a LWE, think more of a rude awakening from the bomb squad and men with rifles. I just sent in a cup with “I Love PG Tips” inked on the side, it’s pointless wasting a stack of effort when they’ll only get one entry.
Anyway, I think I’ve given away too many of my secrets as it is. If I tell you more I might never bag a prize again (no PG Tips pun intended). I know I’ll get feedback from this and I know some of you will be justifiably anxious and want to know what you can do to avoid Comp Fraud. I suppose the most obvious advice is STOP ENTERING NOW. But if you’re the stubborn, belligerent type then the following three Ds will make it harder for the likes of me:
Deliver your own mail.
Don’t waste money on sticky baboons, boats and balloons, more than the judges will be drawn to your effort!!
Disguise the word “Competition”, maybe turn it into an anagram, a foreign translation or something incoherent. OK, the promoter will think you’ve completely lost your marbles, better that than losing your identity I’d have thought.
Failing that, send me a huge wedge of cash and I’ll leave all of your entries alone.
Good luck everyone.
Al Catone
|
