What? Your Powerball lottery ticket didn't pay big either?

Having purchased only the occasional lottery ticket over the years, when a friend told me a week or so ago that the Powerball had topped $200 million, it was the first I'd heard about it. I declared I'd certainly be buying a ticket before the next drawing...but then promptly forgot. The next time she mentioned it again, and that there'd been another drawing sans winner, I made the declaration again. And forgot again.

Yesterday evening, about to hang up on a call with a client, she asked if I'd picked one up. Aaaagh! I really wanted to have one of those tickets. Because as high as the odds are that I won't win $300 million+ in a lottery? Those odds are just a leeeeettle bit higher that I won't win if I haven't purchased a ticket. In spite of the raging, firey opinions about the lottery, (many of which I understand and don't knock, but this isn't a blog about contraversy and convincing people of one side or the other,) I'm just having some fun here. I don't think of it as throwing my money away, as my dad says, (Hi Daddy!) but rather as my little contribution to the pot of the winner. Whomever that winner might be.

It was fun falling asleep last night playing that "What would you do if you won the lottery?" game with myself. Not as much fun, perhaps, as waking up in Indiana and discovering my numbers matched. But fun, nonetheless:

• In spite of all the horror stories about the people who end up going bankrupt afterward, there's a guy whose story I read on CNN Money about a guy who handled his newfound wealth the way I've always thought I would.
  
• Imagining the faces of my family members when certain of their dreams got a fast-forward boost was most excellent.
  
• It was also fun to remember a few people I haven't seen in years, but who have been kind to me over the years, and think of what nice gesture I might show them if I'd won sudden millions. Not to mention all my peeps who are in my everyday life. Oh they would have loved me being the Powerball winner.
• You shouldda' seen the art studio space I was designing in my head. With tons of room for friends to come "play" with me and make things of their own, too.
• Santorini was gonna' be a blast...
  

Back to reality today. Which is, I might point out, quite a fine reality without millions. Hope your Sunday is grand! 

Comments

[Don/Dad]

I hope you win, but you know how I feel about lotteries and all forms of gambling--it's for losers! divide your ticket into 300 million to see how many losers go into the one winner!

However, as I said, I hope you win.

And I am sure some church will appreeciate the tithe!

Love,

Dad

[Sean]

I won $7 on the drawing! (Don't ask how much I paid to get those two winning numbers on the same line of a ticket).

[Don/Dad]

You at least broke even, didn't you, Sean?

Don

[Melody]

Love you Daddy! Na, I didn't win...nor did I expect to. But that much entertainment for $1 per ticket? Yea, it's worth it. A ticket to a movie is significantly greater. The price of a lottery ticket for the "movie script" in my head of the "what if's" is actually cheaper entertainment, so I don't regret buying it. Nor do I feel like a loser. :)

Congrats, Sean! I love winning stuff...even if it's just a few dollars!

[Don/Dad]

I love you, too! Glad you got what you wanted.

Dad