It’s coming – I can just feel it. A two-dollar win on today’s lottery ticket. OK, not the huge windfall that would sweep us into a plush, luxury lifestyle. I’m a faithful buyer of lottery tickets because I’m sure that the big jackpot is just around the corner. The fact that the power number was 5, while I had 3, 4, and 6 doesn’t deter me in the least. I go to sleep nights planning the ski lodge in the Alps (neither of us ski, but that’s beside the point) or the ocean cottage (the view is really all we’re after). A manor house in Shropshire (because I love that name) or a warm retreat in a sunny location for the winter months. Perhaps a villa on the Mediterranean – I hear Monte Carlo is quite nice. Someday, I’d like to walk into a Bentley dealership and say, “I’ll take that one – the burgundy one with the brandy-colored interior. Write it up and I’ll give you a cheque.”
As I said, I’m a faithful and regular customer / dreamer. That’s why it’s especially painful to hear about someone in Ohio or Wisconsin that bought one ticket on a whim. They’re quoted on the news, saying “I don’t usually buy tickets. It was a spontaneous thing.” Really? Are you kidding me? Did you really have to say that out loud and rub five pounds of salt in that wound? There was the story in the news a few years back of the lady that bought a lottery ticket in Florida while on vacation. It won, of course, and the reporter mentioned the irony of – get this – her driving her Rolls Royce back to Florida to collect her winnings. Did she need that? I’m thinking . . . . .Then there are the repeat winners. The people that had a million-dollar scratch ticket two years ago and, how delightful, just got another one. Bought at the same store somewhere out in rural Oklahoma or Arkansas, although now they live in Palm Springs. Now that’s just God laughing at me.
In the interests of full disclosure, I have won on occasion. Two dollars here, four dollars there. I did actually win forty dollars years ago – too long ago to even mention. (Did I tell you I won forty dollars in the lottery a while back?) That’s the most I’ve ever won, and if I live to be two hundred and play weekly, I in moments of self-doubt think that I’ll get that far again. I’d estimate my winnings at about .000000012% of my investment, so the return isn’t promising. The criminal element won’t be kidnapping family members and holding them for ransom any time soon. I was able to justify my grumbling and suspicious complaints for quite a while as it seemed that most big winners were coming from the South or the Midwest, with an occasional big stake in California. The Northeast seemed to be shut out, and I was sensing a conspiracy. In fact, I was very close to having Robert Mueller look into the matter before he got tied up in other things when all of a sudden, wham – we’ve had a couple of big lottery winners in New Hampshire. Not me, of course, but maybe I’m getting closer. At least I’m circling midway between the two big winning locations. In recent years, as my wife and I have driven to DC to visit our daughter, I’d buy tickets along the way – in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, all states claiming prizes. That would no doubt confuse the Lottery Gods, who won’t know it’s me. Sometimes I’d mix it up a bit using Delaware or Maryland to further cast a cloak of invisibility around my purchases. I was even buying tickets left and right while we were in Florida a couple of years ago. Nothing. Then, a big win the week after we left – sold in Florida. The lotto fates are indeed cruel.
My luck has held true to form in the HGTV Dream House drawing as well. There were a couple of very nice locations in New England and the Northeast that would have worked for us. A picturesque little eight bedroom, solar-powered bungalow on Martha’s Vineyard with heated window seats and a kitchen resembling the bridge of the Starship Enterprise, would be very nice. Recently, though, their model homes are in the Southwest (I’m not up for brushfires and scorching temperatures), the Northwest (pretty but rainy), or a Southern bayou (not a huge fan of hurricanes or alligators). This year, it’s in South Carolina. I could to that. Ironically, our daughter is moving from DC back to Boston, so this would be the year we’d win a home down south.
I’m also waiting, in case any of our readers are planning it too, for the nice folks from Publishers Clearing House to deliver my gigantic check. I’ve been practicing my look of surprise and delight as they pull up and ring the doorbell. (They tell you to do that because it makes for exciting television.) Notifications have come that I’m in the Preferred Presidential Platinum Circle, which I do think gives me a decided leg up. They also know where I live because the address has shown up on multiple winning map locations. I was feeling really confident this past winter until a neighbor’s packages were delivered to me by mistake – three purchases from PCH. Just great. She’s out-buying me and her street address is right near to mine. She’ll totally confuse the film crew. The truck will pull up, I’ll have a heart attack, and it’ll turn out they’re just looking for the lady a couple doors down. (She’s older and rather frail, so I think I can get that big check away from her.) Oh, well. Must go now and collect my $2 because I’ve got work to do using my new egg slicer, deviled egg maker, deluxe spoon rest, and avocado rake.
I'm Thinking...No! 