Vons' Monopoly game has a corner on the market for big grocery store prizes

I’ve never been much of a gamer.

The idea of playing poker or blackjack in a smoke-filled back room never appealed to me, although I do love to play Scrabble and Trivial Pursuit. But those probably don’t count as real games to players who are used to late night poker games and online gambling.

Sometimes, however, this gaming thing is thrust upon you.

That’s the only way I can describe the Monopoly game that Vons supermarkets have had going for months. For those who don’t shop at Vons, let me explain how the process works. You walk into to a Vons, buy some groceries and get free Monopoly stickers when you check out. When you get home you can match them up on a fold-out, paper Monopoly board that Vons also provides.

All good so far, right?

Well, let me tell you how it’s worked out for me. My problem began by simply being late to the game (no pun intended). I was aware that Vons checkers were handing me these game pieces every time I bought something at the store. But my curiosity didn’t motivate me to do anything about it until about two months into this.

Oh, I’d glance at the pieces as they were handed to me. And once I even opened up the paper game board and took a look at it. But actually playing the game? I figured I’d have plenty of time for that some slow weekend.

Wrong.

When I finally sat down to begin sorting this out, I realized that my pile of stickers was hitting the ceiling. But like a true gamer, I dutifully spread out my game board and grabbed a couple of stickers to see where they might match up.

The first thing I noticed was that you have to tear off a couple sides of each game piece to get to the sticker inside. And matching them up? Well, that was obviously going to take some time. No, make that a LOT of time.

So I abandoned that endeavor after about 10 minutes.

The newest wrinkle to this saga happened yesterday when I stopped in at my neighborhood Vons for a couple of items. I noticed that for the first time in a couple of months the checker didn’t hand me any Monopoly stickers with my receipt.

“Did you run out of stickers?” I asked.

“No,” the bag boy replied. “That promotion is over.”

“Well, how much longer do I have to check the stickers?” I asked.

“You have a couple of weeks left,” he said.

OK, so now I’m under the gun to plow through what must easily be 300 or more stickers to see which ones match up. And I haven’t even read deep enough into the instructions to see what kinds of prizes I might win.

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At the very least, I figure I’m looking at an investment of about half a day to find out.

But getting back to that prizes thing, I finally took at look at a Vons Monopoly wiers page online to see what kinds of prizes have already been awarded. And they look pretty good.

Andria T. of Las Vegas won a $50,000 home makeover, Frederick S. of Colorado Springs snagged a $35,000 vehicle and several others have won $5,000 worth of groceries. Some even got $1,000 in cash. Still good.

So I may have to plow through these stickers after all. Maybe I’ll hold a sticker party and split the wiings with whoever chooses to help me check them all.

Sounds like a plan.