Wednesday, March 25, 2015

Family Four Pack

Well, Butch the bus driver was wrong.  The snow did not all melt by that afternoon, and now we've added another half inch or so.  I just love spring, don't you?

Anyway...

About a year ago, a friend of mine bought a Living Social voucher for the local symphony.  I know this because of how Living Social works.  You buy the discounted deal, then if you can get 3 more people to buy the same deal, you get it for free.  So my friend bought the deal, and, in an effort to save even more money, posted a link.  I had been contemplating buying the same deal, so I took note.

My friend, like me, has 3 kids and a husband.  That means there are 5 people in their immediate family.  Since the deal was for 4 tickets, I teasingly asked her who was going to have to stay home.  She joked that her youngest, who I think was 4 at the time, was going to be on her own that day.

It is unfortunate, for me, for our family, that deals like these are almost always set up for 2 or 4 people.  And it's not just the daily deal sites--vacations, cruises, attractions--the deals are almost always set up for 2 or 4 people.  Every now and then, I'll see a package deal for 6, but 2 or 4 seems to be the most common number.  I don't think I realized that before we were a family of 5.

In the past week, I've entered 2 giveaways for family 4-packs of tickets to fun things.  I think I have a pretty good chance of winning, since I have won 100% of the family 4-pack giveaways I've entered in the past 6 months.  It's true.  Before Christmas, I won 4 passes to a local trampoline park, and just last month I won 4 passes to an Ice Castle (there were fire dancers--very impressive).

But as I was completing my entries, and contemplating how likely it is that I will win again, I couldn't help but think about the practical question of how I would use my prizes.  Would one of us stay home?  Would we buy another ticket?  Or would more than one of us stay home and the lucky attenders bring a guest?  The second option might not be viable for these since both of the giveaways are for tickets to sporting events, and the seats are presumably already assigned.

It's not a big hairy deal, really.  I mean, it's one of the costs associated with being an odd family (I mean) having an odd number of people in our family, and given the choice, I prefer to remain a family of 5.  It would be nice, however, just once, for the package-deal makers of the world to acknowledge the fact that some folks have odd numbers of people that they want to do stuff with.  Can't they set up a first-two-at-this-price-each-additional-at-an-also-discounted-price deal?  How hard could it be?

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