The Lotto

i hate checking my lotto tickets.  hate it.  i have fantasized about how i would use the money, how i'd give my notice to work and never work again, how i'd keep my house less than 3500 square feet so it wasn't a chore to keep it clean.  yeah, i've put thought into this.  i'd pay off my sister's mortgage, i'd buy her a Tahoe, the hub and i would buy a boat and live by the water.  the fantasy goes on and on, hardly ever changing.  and for a second before i check those numbers, it could all really happen.  

then you check and don't recognize your numbers, and there's some headline that some old man in delaware won, and it's over.  I get random numbers because i'm too lazy to play my own and fill out the form.  i get the numbers on separate tickets, or else i end up with 5 sets of numbers that look very similar to each other.  i like to make it spontaneous;  "oh, let's stop at the speedway and get a ticket!"  the closer to wednesday or saturday night the better.  it seems that when winning the lotto, it should be something along the lines of, "oh, i just stopped for an icee and a twix and i figured that if i don't play, i can't win, and i did buy a ticket full of random numbers and WON!"  perhaps the truth ("i left dinner half-cooked and sped up to the gas station where i impatiently waited in line, just to get a look from the cashier that pissed me off, and i stuffed the tickets into my purse, and waited to win as if it was owed to me") just doesn't look as nice in the spotlight of the tv cameras.  

the great thing about the lotto is that you don't have to deserve it.  it's also the worst thing about the lotto.  many a moron has ended up on a TLC cautionary tale of how the winner, years later, lives in a van after bad "investment choices."  and i live in the state where the biggest lotto winner couldn't keep from having hundreds of thousands of dollars stolen from his truck while he was in the strip club.  multiple times.  so, i just lean back, and tell myself, "wouldn't be me.  i'd spend the money wisely.  i'd be smart about the whole process.  but i don't know for sure because i don't win things.  raffles, silent auctions, lotto - i don't win.  so, even though i didn't win last night's drawing, there's always wednesday...