To win $10,000 after being so close to losing it is surreal. And slightly terrifying. Let this be a lesson to check your email.

It started and ended, funnily enough, with an email. I was procrastinating studying by checking my email. There was an email introducing SLN Labs to take a survey for the chance to win $10,000. I thought, Oh cool! This would seriously help with my school expenses and loans. Although I thought I had a 0.1% chance of winning I thought participating in this contest would be a nice temporary distraction.

Now if someone called you and said you had won $10,000, what would you say?

Fast forward to some month’s later. I was out and about when I received a phone call telling me that I won $10,000, but I needed to confirm that I had received an email saying I had won. Now if someone were to call you and tell you that you won $10,000, what would you say? Would you believe it? I know I didn’t at first. Once I was told that I won, I was expecting someone to ask for my credit card number, because I thought it had to be a scam.

That didn’t happen.

Rather, Nicole, the genial representative from Student Life Network, was cool, calm and genuinely excited for me. I had to ask if this was real. Then again, you don’t get phone calls saying you’ve won $10,000 every day. At least real ones. It was real, Nicole promised me.

I checked my phone for the email. After a few moments of browsing, there it was, leading with “Congratulations!” Bahhhh! How did I miss this email? There it sat, marked unread. Maybe I had seen it before, but I subconsciously decided not to open it thinking it wasn’t real. Then the doubt came back. Maybe this still isn’t real.

I talked myself into believing it was real then talked myself out of it. Again.

It was so hard to believe because you never really hear about something like this happening to anybody you know. The crazy part was how close I was to losing it. I had 5 business days to respond and claim my prize. I had two days left to claim. If it weren’t for the phone call, I surely would have lost this amazing opportunity of winning $10,000. This taught me some important lessons. Starting with NOT EVERYTHING IS A SCAM, even though we’re taught to be overly cautious in these times. But let this be a lesson that there are some people and companies that genuinely care about people and their customers. What a thought!

In the end, it never hurts to sign up for a contest no matter how slim you think your chances are of winning. Also, check your emails thoroughly and avoid just scanning over emails in case you might miss something important!

You know, like $10,000.