I Paid Off My Student Loans…and All I Had to Do Was Win a Mercedes-Benz

As a post-grad struggling to build a creative career while drowning in debt, I was desperate for a lifeline. Then one rolled right up in the form of a $50,000 luxury SUV.

Illustration by Max Pepper

I was stuck in traffic on U.S. 1 in Miami, sweating, because the air conditioning in my clunker of a car had broken and no amount of Freon could bring it back to life, when my cell phone rang.

“Hello, is this Vanessa Garcia? You’ve won a Mercedes-Benz.”

I hung up. Obviously, this was a joke. They called back. “Don't hang up. You filled out a form, in Miami Beach...”

My thoughts tunneled back, and I remembered. Two years earlier. Art Basel, Miami Beach, one of the world’s biggest art fairs. I’d gone to feed on all the art I needed to keep making my own work. I also had a press pass to the opening — one of my jobs back then was as a stringer for the Miami Herald. So I invited my boyfriend, and we joined the parade of collectors at the vernissage. A raffle greeted us at the door. If you filled out a form, you could win a car. “Let’s do it,” my boyfriend said. Why not? I thought, then I laughed it off and forgot about it.

Fast forward to two years later, sitting in m…