by Robert LaFrance
Remember a few years ago when I asked a woman if she had rose hips and got a good slap up the side of the head? Well, I did it again. That’s what it is to get old; you forget stuff you really should remember. I was talking when I should have been listening—and remembering. From now on I’ll have no trouble remembering though, once I get this rolling pin removed.
On to pleasanter subjects, or at least on to a subject that doesn’t describe my ending up in Intensive Care:
I am wondering if anyone out there in the real world had heard about my winning the lottery. To be specific, the Atlantic Lottery and one million dollars. If you haven’t, there’s a good reason for that. However, I did win a free ticket and another week of hope. Which reminds me: many years ago I knew a girl named Hope and she left my heart broken and bleeding, and I have a feeling that all my future lottery efforts will meet the same fate.
Why do we buy lottery tickets anyway? Yes, I know, to have a chance to win zillions and move to Easy Street from Hogface Avenue, but what are the odds? I have estimated that, in my case, the odds against my winning the lottery—any lottery over twenty dollars—are roughly 44 billion to one. And that would be on a good day when the stars are lined up in my favour. Yet I continue to spend two to four dollars every week on the off-chance that my number will be drawn.
Old Man Fabianski said to me one day as we were discussing the subject: “If you were flying (in a plane that is) at five thousand feet over the Gobi Desert (in Mongolia) and threw a dime out the window of the plane, then flew to Lagos, Nigeria (in Africa) for lunch, then a month later came back on a camel looking for that dime, you would have a better chance of finding it than you do of winning the lottery.”
What is it about me that insists I must never be rich? Every day in the paper I see photos of Charles and Letitia, or John and Myrtle, or Gerda and Erick, who have won four million dollars, or even $100,000. What do they have that I don’t?
Winning lottery tickets for one thing. Still, why can’t my ticket be the one yanked out of the lucky barrel?
When my father was about seventy I suggested that he buy a lottery ticket. “Why would I want to do that?” he asked. “What would I spend it on? I got everything I need—a pension, a good dog, lots to eat, and a television.” Put like that, I suppose he had a point, but on his table at the time was a photo of me. I showed that to him. Then I tried a photo of my kids, then the dog and cat. Nothing. Finally I suggested that if he won the lottery he could drill a new well and hire a housekeeper. That did it. He gave me two dollars. Three days later he asked about the lottery. I said he hadn’t won. Quite a look of disappointment, even annoyance, there. He really expected to win.
Among the other lotteries I have (not) won over the years are The Irish Sweepstakes, the Vancouver Yacht Club Lottery, The Inuvik Annual Municipal Draw (for a snowmobile and directions on how to build an igloo), and the Perth-Andover Fire Department 50/50 Weekly Draw.
You want to talk about rubbing salt in a wound, try mentioning to me about that blasted sign in Andover, the one that gives the name of that week’s 50/50 winner. The prize is around $4500 now, which means I could pay off last month’s bar tab at the club and have enough left over for some Froot Loops, my favourite cereal, next to porridge. Trouble is, they keep drawing someone else’s name. Either that, or they keep spelling mine wrong.
Flug’s cousin Esmerelda from Bairdsville is one of those people you love to hate, because she wins a lottery about every two years. No, ‘hate’ is much too weak a word. How about despise, loathe, abhor, revile, and detest? I’ve been buying lottery tickets since the late 1970s and the most I’ve ever won is fifty dollars—at best a down payment on my bar bill. I recall winning that and the cashier handing me the five ten dollar bills. I thought: “She’s my good luck charm,” and asked her to marry me, but since we were both married it was rather inconvenient to arrange.
Am I going to continue buying lottery tickets? You bet your earlobe. Ya can’t win if ya don’t play. Whatever you may have heard, I really am not very bright.
-end-
No comments:
Post a Comment