The Prize

The text message on the cell phone read, "Lowest Bid."

Had he been paying attention at that particular time, he would have noticed that the opportunity to win an Apple I-Phone was right there within reach. It was almost that simple.

Earlier in the day, before this moment of moments, he had been sitting there at some not-so-local truck stop, eating what passed for lunch and looking for something interesting to do with his time. Bid4Prizes.com seemed a likely suspect for such an activity. Hadn't one of his acquaintances won an HDTV a few weeks ago?

Why not, he thought to himself.

He was a little surprise to find the Sweepstake high for the day. It was indeed an Apple I-phone. All he had to do was make the correct lowest bid, type it into the space for the prize he wanted (yes, oh yes, please let me win the Apple I-phone) and enter his cell phone. If his bid was the lowest unique bid, then it was his. Yeah, baby.

Perhaps 11,502 cents would be a good number. If that was the lowest creative bid, he dounted anyone else would pick that number. He knew better than to pick one cent. If more than one person choose that number then the bid would move up to two cents, so the strategy seemed to be in picking a creative number that was the lowest bid without it being duplicated. All in all it was like picking a lucky number. And if you were lucky, Free Gifts would come your way. There were no fees to pay, just a tad bit of time, the cost of a few text messages and that was it. Easy.

He had thought about doing this on his cell phone, but he would do that another day. That sounded simple too. It was just a matter of texting your bid to a certain number depending on what prize you wanted. Perhaps he would do this for the cash prize of $50,000. If he were to win that, he could spend a few months off the road and just take it easy. Perhaps there would be time to catch up on his sleep. He badly needed more sleep, but the road was a constant commitment of long hours and hard nights - alone.

Yes, for a few happy moments, he had been immersed in the dream of being one of the daily winners. He had chosen his prize, typed in the bid, and waited for chance to play his hand.

And now the phone had rung. The text message waited.