‘When I moved, I had to rent a trailer to take the toilet rolls.’ Frank Cazares, 30, costume designer, Palm Springs, California, US
I’ve always been pretty crafty. At school, I could make anything from scraps and, in 2014, an old teacher contacted me with details of a competition running on a bridal blog. Participants were asked to design a wedding dress out of toilet paper. I procrastinated for a long time until, three days before deadline, I decided to go for it.
You could use any number of toilet rolls, plus tape, glue or thread. The top 10 designs would be modelled at the finals in New York, and the ultimate winner would get a $10,000 prize.
I spent $100 on toilet paper and didn’t sleep for two days. My design was an elaborately constructed off-the-shoulder dress, with fringing and a train of paper roses. It earned me a place in the finals and, while I didn’t win the cash prize, there was a lady from the toilet paper industry on the judging panel who sprang from her seat, applauded wildly and declared my dress worthy of a lifetime supply. It was kind of shocking and unexpected, but everyone laughed and cheered: it was a celebration of my dress. It wasn’t the most glamorous prize but it was at least practical.
The toilet rolls started arriving three months later. I was at design school in Orange County and living in a rented room, so my housemates were pretty excited when I got a phone call from UPS saying there was a big order for me to pick up. I pulled up at the depot in my Mini Cooper expecting a large package, and was met by two pallets, piled high with about 20 boxes, containing hundreds of rolls. I couldn’t get it all in the car. I folded the seats down, opened up boxes and shoved packets in every footwell. I was sweating. It was like something out of a movie.
This would happen every two or three months; I would receive up to 400 rolls at a time. I’d go to the warehouse, or a haulage truck would pull up outside my house.
Storing it was a problem. I made a bedside table out of it, put it under my desk, in my wardrobe and in the garage. Christmas 2014 was the cheapest ever; everyone got toilet roll. At work, I wrapped up an 18-roll pack for our white-elephant game – a bit like secret Santa – and everyone fought over it. I gave them out for family birthdays because they were coming so thick and fast, but they sent a mix of qualities and I always kept the more expensive mega rolls, which were softer and more luxurious, for myself. When I moved across state, I had to rent a trailer to take the toilet rolls with me.
After about three years, when the deliveries abruptly stopped, I was pretty shocked. I had failed to figure out that my entire lifetime supply had been sent up front – that was why I had received so much, so often. The company had calculated how many rolls a man my age, living alone, would need for life and delivered them all. I wished then that I hadn’t been so generous, and became more reserved about giving them away. My supply eventually ran out in early 2017: I had blown it in a couple of years.
I’m still known as “the toilet paper guy”. It’s a never-ending joke with my friends and I still get stopped by strangers at the mall. A few weeks ago, it happened at a local restaurant.
I chuckle inside every time I have to buy toilet paper at the supermarket; but it hurts a bit, too. Sometimes I take a picture at the checkout and send it to friends.
‘I thought I’d be eating KFC every day, but I get one bonus bucket a month.’ Lewis Austin, 22, double-glazing salesman, Bridgend
When I was 18, I used to watch the YouTuber KSI and at the end of one of his videos he advertised a competition to win 50 years’ worth of free KFC, to celebrate its 50th birthday. I used to eat there fairly often – not because I loved it, more because I couldn’t be bothered to cook. So I thought, “Why not?”
You had to tell Twitter what you would do to win the prize, and there were all sorts of ridiculous suggestions. It was free to enter, so I had a few goes. The first thing that came into my head was: “I’d eat the hottest chilli in the world.” I put it up there with the hashtag and forgot about it.
About three months I was woken by a call from an unknown number at 9am. It was a guy from KFC telling me I’d submitted one of its favourite answers and won. He asked me to go to a branch in Bracknell to film a promotional video with the other winners a few days later. I never thought I’d be on YouTube, but the video is still up there. You can see me eating my ghost chilli. I went for it in one go; at first I didn’t think it was so bad but I quickly started sweating. They gave me a frozen drink to cool me down. There was a guy who bungee jumped, another who was rugby tackled and a woman who got married in the restaurant; there were flowers out and everything. I absolutely loved life that day. I had all these cameras in my face. I felt like I was a big deal, and all my mates were talking about it.
I signed my winner’s contract but, if I’m honest, I didn’t read it, so when the prize started to arrive it wasn’t exactly what I had imagined. I thought I’d be eating KFC every day if I wanted, but each year I get a golden chequebook with 12 “cheques” – one for each month, entitling me to a KFC bonus bucket or a 12-piece sharing bucket.
When the first one arrived, in 2015, I headed to a local branch to try it out. They didn’t know what it was and I had to show the manager the video. It took a couple of visits to get that ironed out, but they know me well now.
That first year, I blew all the cheques in a few months. I’d go with friends and share a big bucket on a Sunday, after a night out. The meals I’m given with my cheques are too much for one person. It was great for a while, but now the excitement’s worn off. Occasionally someone at work asks if we can get chicken, but sometimes I don’t even get round to claiming my buckets. If I fancy a quick lunch on my own, I just end up paying £6 like everyone else.
My mates have always called me chicken, because I run like a chicken, so that’s got another meaning now. My win might not have been what I thought, but I’ve still got buckets full of fried chicken to enjoy till I’m almost 70.
‘We have a fridge in the garage for my milk, and Dad’s beers.’ Brady Carpenter, 10, schoolboy, Ann Arbor, Michigan, US
My family are big University of Michigan football fans and I go to the games with my mom and dad, and sometimes my little brother, JJ, too. When I was six, my dad signed me up for their Kids Go Blue fan club, which has a whole bunch of activities. One of them was a press conference with the coach, Jim Harbaugh, and all the kids who were chosen had to think of a question. Mine was: “How much milk do I have to drink to be big enough to be a quarterback?” I was one of the last kids to ask my question and he said to me: “Can I give you a hug?” After that he told me: “Well, Brady, you have to drink as much as your little belly can hold.”
It was on ESPN and lots of news channels, which was super cool. This milk company, called Fairlife, saw it and thought it was really cool, too, and asked my mom and dad if I wanted to go on a tour of its factory.
They drove my whole family to their farm, in Indiana, in a limo and we stayed in a hotel. They let us have ice-cream and showed us the milk carts powered by cow poo, which was really funny. Then they gave me a football helmet and said they were going to give me free milk for the rest of my life. I was really, really excited.
In the limo, there were coolers full of milk for us to take home till my book of coupons arrived. The first ones had my photo on. When we went to the store to use them, some people recognised me from TV. We tried all the types of milk, but I love whole milk and chocolate best.
The coupons are good for a litre, and Dad emails when we need more. We usually grab about 10 bottles at a time and we have a fridge in the garage for my milk, and Dad’s beers. I have milk every day on my breakfast cereal and sometimes I take a small bottle for my lunch, or have a cup before bed.
If I could choose anything to have for life, I would choose ice-cream, but I really like milk. My dad told me that it makes you really strong and tall. I want to be a golfer when I grow up, so I will need it for that. I think I’m super lucky. No other kid got to win this and it makes me happy that I get to share it with my family and friends. I’m going to drink milk for ever..
‘There’s an irony to winning a lifetime supply of ice-cream at the age of 74.’ Rosemary Yeldham, 76, retired radiographer, Wanborough, Wiltshire
I don’t remember entering a competition. But I must have unknowingly signed up as a friend of Mackie’s – the Scottish ice-cream brand – because I received an email in the summer of 2016 explaining that doing so had won me 26 litres of ice-cream a year, for the rest of my life. It’s equivalent to a tub a fortnight.
I’ve loved ice-cream since I was a child; it has always made my eyes brighten. In my childhood, there was no ice-cream at home – we had ice-cream wafer sandwiches once in a blue moon – so seeing a Cornish ice-cream seller was the highlight of our summer holidays. I still head to the best ice-cream seller in town in hot weather.
When I learned about my win, I just thought: “How absolutely amazing!” I didn’t believe it, so I phoned up to check, with a series of questions. It was such a delight – I kept telling people what had happened. Within a month, a parcel arrived containing vouchers that were redeemable against a one-litre tub. The vouchers took me to my birthday, 8 January, and I receive 26 more every year on that date, which is a lovely gesture.
Mackie’s is not so well-known here in Wiltshire. It is stocked in several local supermarkets, but only vanilla, which is a shame because the honeycomb is wonderful. I’d have to go farther afield for other flavours and you can’t very well travel 200 miles to get ice-cream home.
My husband, Martin, and I have ice-cream almost every day after dinner, with fruit that we grow in our garden. I always have two tubs in the freezer. I keep a voucher in my purse, because I never know when I’m going to see it.
Before my win, I mostly bought ice-cream when my three grandchildren and six step-grandchildren came to visit. The youngest is 16 now. I send vouchers on to them.
I still feel delight at my good fortune. Mackie’s contacts me every winter to check I am at the same address, which makes me smile; I think they are probably checking I am still alive. There is an irony to winning a lifetime supply at the age of 74. When I’m 96, I might consider that I don’t need 26 litres of ice-cream a year. If I’ve had enough of it, I shall tell them.
‘By the time I die, I will have a library curated especially for me.’ Matt Pollard, 27, IT administrator, Liverpool
My workmates and I are avid readers and, in 2016, one of them saw a competition on Twitter run by Heywood Hill bookshop in Mayfair, London. It was offering a library of a lifetime – a book a month for life. You had to send an email stating your favourite book, and the three of us threw our names in. None of us won, but when it ran again the following year I gave it another shot.
Entrants had to say which object and which book they would take to Mars, so, over the summer, I sent off my entry via its website: a Swiss army knife and The Road by Cormac McCarthy – a book I read once a year, about a father and son in a post-apocalyptic land. I forgot about it entirely until, a couple of months later, I got an email at about 10.30pm as I was heading to bed, saying I’d won. I couldn’t believe it. I read it a couple of times before the news sunk in. I’ve won little competitions before – bits of food – but never anything like this. From a young age, I enjoyed going to the library and picking out books. As an adult, I still do, and I have a Kindle so I buy cheap books on that.
I was bowled over by how bespoke my prize turned out to be. I had a phone consultation with one of the shop’s book experts who noted my reading preferences and interests. Each month, they send me a new book that they have picked out according to my tastes. By the time I die, I will have a library curated especially for me. I can’t imagine anything better.
I like sci-fi and adventure, but now I read books I would never have known about. Recently, I enjoyed String Theory – David Foster Wallace’s book about tennis – and a biography of Alexander The Great.
The first week of every month I get a brown cardboard package through the letterbox. Inside, the book is wrapped in brown paper with a royal blue ribbon. It’s like getting a birthday present every month. It’s a prize I can share: when I finish a book, I lend it to my friends at work.
I’m living at my mum’s at the moment. The books are piled up on a couple of shelves in my room but I’m running out of space. My girlfriend is a keen reader, too, and we have a picture in our minds that one day we will have a home with a bay window, surrounded by book shelves, where we can just sit together and read my collection.
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