The Lottery
I play the lottery. I'll admit it. But let me lay out the facts first. I'm not the person who tacks on $10 worth of scratch tickets every time he visits the 7-11. Nor am I the person who holds up the Safeway line by purchasing one of 15 different types of scratch tickets. I play the lottery, on average, between once and twice a year. Here are my rules for the lottery:
Rule 1: It's always Powerball and only under specific circumstances. When the jackpot reaches a high enough level that there are stories about it on the news showing people lining up to by tickets, that's when I make my move. Here's my logic: The odds of winning the jackpot (matching all six number between 1 and 60 correctly) are nearly 1 in 200,000,000. If, in my life, I'm going to hit 1 in 200,000,000 odds on something, I want it to be big. $20 million dollars? Please. What am I going to do with that? I doubt I could even get half of my house encased in gold for that amount. But $300 million? Now we're getting somewhere. Also, by nature, I am an extraordinarily rational individual. So when I do something completely ridiculous and far-fetched, I go whole hog and join the crazies who buy more tickets when the jackpot is higher even though the odds are exactly the same each time. And by playing Powerball only when the jackpot reaches an obscene level, it ensures that I never drop more than roughly $10 in a given year.
Rule 2: I always buy 5 $1 tickets. Why? Because, in my mind, the chances of me buying just one ticket and having that be the winner seems unfathomable to me. But 5? Just like that I've improved my odds to 1 in 40,000,000. Even Charlie needed four chocolate bars to find his golden ticket. I always appreciated that about Roald Dahl. Having Charlie find the ticket in the one bar he received for his birthday would have been preposterous.
Rule 3: I never pick my own numbers. Again, this has to do with my mental approach. Coming up with 6 random numbers and having each of them pop up in succession seems like an impossible task. It's far easier for me to comprehend a computer simply spitting out the correct combination for me. I also never watch the numbers as they are drawn for the same reason. Having all 6 of my numbers pop up one by one could never happen but seeing 6 numbers on a web site that match my 6 on a piece of paper seems feasible.
The funny thing is that, if I ever did win the lottery, I'm pretty sure I'd be petrified. Initially I wouldn't know what to do with the ticket, I'd worry that, that night, something even more improbable than me actually winning Powerball would occur (like the ticket being struck by lightning twice.) I would be insanely paranoid and wouldn't want to tell a soul, possibly not even Shelbi. So a good way to tell if I have just won the lottery might be if you ask me how I'm doing and I respond with: "What?! Shut up! I know you don't really want to know! You're not my friend!"
I think I would also feel an enormous sense of guilt. Don't get me wrong, I'd quit my job in a heartbeat and I am definitely not one of those people who would have to find some kind of work to stay busy even if they didn't need to. I would almost certainly spend my days in my large house by the golf course in an all-terrain remote controlled chair (also gold plated) but there would be part of me that would feel like I didn't earn it. I'm pretty sure I could get over it quickly, perhaps by getting a massage from my monkey butler, but the fact that I'd be set for life by doing something that required no talent or no hard work would still probably eat at me a bit.
But I'd still be willing to give it a shot. And hey, lottery proceeds go to help education anyway so, in a way, it's like I'm giving to charity.
One leads to the other. This is pretty much an artist's rendition of what I have in mind.
You neglected to mention the gold plated suit - and the fact that your mother would nag you into giving several millions to World Vision! So I do hope you win!
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His wife pretty much wants to give away all our money to World Vision right now anyway. So, that's not too much of a change. But Matt thinks our altruism is what is KEEPING us from winning the lottery. Or something like that.
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If I win the lottery, you'll have your monkey butler, sir. This I promise to you. (His name will be Gerald.)
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