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?