Seeking Redemption 9: Trolled by Topps

Part of this year's Power Players online code promotion was that if you collected 30 different cards from Series 1 and 30 different cards from Series 2, you would win a special Gold parallel card. I had already redeemed three Gold parallel cards from the Instant Win portion of the game, so I knew when I ordered this card that it would be gold foilboard and numbered out of  # / 75. I paid my two dollars for shipping and waited a few weeks for 'processing,' which I believe means that enough orders pile up in the tray that the printer in the Topps warehouse won't print anymore without pushing papers onto the floor, so Larry the order fulfillment guy took a few minutes off from ignoring the phone to grab a few papers and pack some orders. Then he handed off the small box of envelopes to the FedEx driver, who set them in a milk crate in the truck and promptly forgot about them. When they were found, they traveled to every shipping center in each state between New York and Idaho, as well as a brief and inexplicable detour from Indiana to Memphis and back to New Jersey, presumably to pick up an STD from Pauly D. At some point the milk crate was backed over by a forklift, but it eventually got into my mailbox. I opened the envelope and found this:

Well, that looks awfully familiar. Of all the 660 cards in the set, Larry had to send me one of the three I already had. What are the odds of that? About half of 1%, if my math is close. So even in awarding me a prize, Topps has managed to annoy and irritate me.

This one is numbered # 58 / 75. I guess there is always the chance of pulling doubles when getting trading cards, but it's rarely an enjoyable experience. Oh, and I didn't win any of the fancy prizes, like a medallion card, an autograph, or the Grand Prize of a full set of 40 autographs. Kind of disappointing after going to the effort of collecting the full set of Power Players code cards.