Aileen Jeffries

First, let it be said that I hardly ever win anything. This may, just possibly, be due to the fact that I don’t enter many contests. The odds are rarely good and the prizes not worth the taxes. But, a couple of weeks ago, an opportunity fell into my lap that seemed tailor-made for me. The prize? Two minutes to spend $2,000 on bluefly.com.

For me, this is like Christmas. Competitive Christmas. My mornings begin with perusing the sales on sites like Rue La La and Ideeli. I spend all day camped out in front of a computer, ostensibly earning a living but in reality perfecting my clicking and typing skills, preparing for this very moment. I was born for this.

I had about a week to prepare. The contest was set to place this morning at a local radio station, 103.3 KKCW. This introduced a host of maddening unknowns – the operating system, browser, Internet connection speed, etc. I also wanted to maximize my allotted $2,000 – I could just get one item close to that price but that would ruin the fun and wouldn’t be as enjoyable as getting many less expensive items. But, every item added to the cart cost me time; time to find the item on the site, to select size and color, to add to the cart. Precious seconds. I hit upon a strategy, to search by keyword. Searching for “Odessa” leads straight to a gorgeous pair of Due Farina boots and is far faster than browsing to the boots through categories.

Throughout the week, I trained in a series of heats – refining my list of items and keywords. This morning, I arose early to confirm nothing I wanted had been sold out.

The guys at the station running the contest were laid-back and friendly and not nearly as giddy as I. Clearly, they do not spend their free time hunting online for the perfect jersey knit dress to transition into early spring. They took pictures and tried gamely to turn the mundane process of e-commerce into an exciting radio segment. I had trained for distractions and someone (in my mind dressed as drill sergeant or my 7th grade gym teacher) unplugging the Ethernet cable at the 2:00:00 minute mark but of course the reality was far less dramatic.

In the end, I can fairly assess that I made the most of it. The final total came to $2,002.47 (the overage I happily paid). A handbag for my friend who told me about the contest, three pairs of boots, two jackets, two dresses, a sweater, a pair of earrings, tights and some frilly unmentionables. Now, to wait in eager anticipation for my loot to arrive!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 27th, 2010 at 12:42 pm and is filed under Accessories, Best Thing Ever. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.