When I was in college, I worked at a really unfortunately-named baby clothes manufacturer (now defunct, but for some reason I’m still skittish about publishing its name. But it was REALLY BAD, you guys. We got mistaken for a teen pregnancy center a lot. Not that there’s anything wrong with being a teen pregnancy center, but when what you’re actually doing is manufacturing $80 matelasse baby jackets, it’s an unfortunate point of confusion.)
(Sorry, that was a long intro.)
Anyway, one of my coworkers at Unfortunately Named Baby Products Company was a woman in her early 40s, a single mom with a manufacturing background, who smoked a lot and drank a lot of Coke Classic. I forget her name, so we’re going to call her Debra. Debra was kind of rough around the edges, and I think the owner hired me mostly because she wanted someone a little more polished who didn’t smell of smoke to deal with the clients in the small retail nook we ran out of the front of the warehouse space.
(Apparently not done with the intro. Getting to the point now, I promise.)
ANYWAY, the summer I worked there, Coke was running a bottle caps promotion, where you could win a prize if your bottle cap said “winner!” Prizes included things like a Coke tshirt, Coke keychain, and a free Coke. The game details on the bottles said that, like, 1 in 50 bottles was a winner.
Debra, as I mentioned, drank a LOT of Coke, and as the summer progressed, she got increasingly irritated that she had not yet happened upon a winning bottle.
One day, after twisting off another non-winning top, Debra had had enough, and turned to me in indignation. “I drink a lot of Coke!” she said to me. “This game must be rigged.”
“Well,” I said, in all my one-year-of-college earnestness, “actually, it’s probably just bad luck- that’s the way probability works, there’s no guarantee that if you draw 50 bottles, one will be a winner- you could have 1, or 3, or none. That’s just the odds of winning OVERALL. So, like, in Vegas, when you’re considering the odds of winning at craps- ”
“Whatever,” Debra interrupted me. ”I know how it works. It says one in 50 is a winner, I’ve had more than 50, I didn’t win. They’re cheating.”
So Debra called Coke. From work. Because, sure, why not?
“Hi, I drink a lot of Coke, like definitely more than 50 bottles, and I haven’t gotten a winning cap, even though the game says that 1 in 50 is a winner.”
Now, I couldn’t hear the Coke end of this conversation, but here’s where I’d imagine someone saying something like “well, ma’am, those are the odds, but that’s no guarantee that if you drink 50 bottles you’ll get a winner.”
Debra was having none of it.
“I am one of your best customers,” she continued. “I don’t even drink water. I drink at least 3 bottles of Coke every day, and I haven’t gotten a winner. This is crap.”
Here I’d imagine the Coke person saying something like “well, see here’s the thing about probability…”
At this point, I was making a “hey, it’s no big, maybe you should sign off!” face at Debra. There were hand gestures. I was getting a little embarrassed for her, frankly.
Debra persisted.
“I want to know what you’re going to do about the fact that I haven’t gotten a winner even though I’ve drunk more than 50 bottles,” she said. “This is ridiculous.”
At this point Debra’s four year old son, who often came to work with her, was watching intently. I was watching him watching her.
There was a long pause. Debra listened to the person on the other end of the line.
“FINALLY,” she said. Then she recited her address and hung up.
“They’re sending me a coupon for a free Coke,” she told me, triumphantly. Then, to her son, “see, son, sometimes you’ve got to stand up for your rights.”
And then, for a change, I was speechless.
