We’ve been on a bit of a roll lately. Scratch tickets coming in with modest gains. Ten dollars, then twenty. Last week, fifteen. I can just feel it – a big win is just around the corner. I’d contact David to help us pick out our “Lottery Dream Home”, but that may be premature, and we haven’t really decided on a location either. Now, with that huge lottery jackpot over a billion dollars, I go to sleep nights planning the ski lodge in the Alps (neither of us ski, but we could certainly watch other people) or the ocean cottage (before climate change washes it away). 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 – Malta looks very nice, as does Majorca. Someday, I’d like to walk into a Mercedes or Land Rover dealership and say, “I’ll take that one. Write it up and I’ll give you a cheque.”
I’ve been planning this for quite a while. When the Princess was first going to college, in 2000, my substantial winnings were going to pay for it. That didn’t quite work out as planned. It’s therefore especially painful to hear about someone in Louisiana 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 more salt in that wound? There was the story in the news a few years back of the lady that bought a lottery ticket in Texas on a trip to her home town. It won, of course, and the reporter mentioned the irony of – get this – she returned a few years later, again bought a ticket, and of course that too won. Another few million. I’m thinking . . . . .Then there are a surprising number of repeat winners too. Now that’s just God laughing at me.
I did actually win forty dollars years ago – too long ago to even mention, but I will anyway. 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 the Justice Department appoint a special prosecutor to look into the matter until, suddenly, we’ve had a couple of big lottery winners in New Hampshire. Not me, of course, but maybe I’m inching closer. At least I’m circling midway between the two big winning locations. Years ago, when Elizabeth was living in DC and we’d drive down to visit her, I’d buy tickets along the way – in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, all states claiming prizes. My strategy was to spread it around, which would greatly increase my chances of winning. 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. The only possible upside was that I wouldn’t have to go back to claim my winnings.
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 that looked like a much larger version of “Chopped”, 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 and currently washing away in mudslides), or a Southern bayou (not a huge fan of hurricanes or alligators). Something on a safe coast, like Maine, would do very nicely. As the Princess has now, after several years of graduate school in Boston, established herself, it would figure that we’d win a dream home far, far, far away.
Meanwhile, I’m still waiting, in case any of our readers are planning it too, for the nice folks from PCH to deliver my gigantic check, along with balloons and film crew. 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, and they tell me confidently that my number is at the top of their list. That’s why they tell me on their emails that “You really don’t want to miss this.” I’m under strict orders from Her Ladyship and the Princess to “cease and desist”, I believe is the legal phrase. Oh, well. Must go now and collect my $2 because I’ve got work to do using my new egg slicer, deviled egg carrier, deluxe spoon rest, and microwave cover. I’ll save my purchases for plants. That will drive them both nuts.
I'm Thinking...No! 