Publishers Clearing House, the old prize contest, has contacted me by email about my potential entry into the current version. They began the letter, "Your decision is immediately requested!", on whether I want to enter this year's contest or not.
Immediately requested, eh? I'm not sure that they haven't requested my answer immediately by having already made the offer. I mean, isn't asking me to respond immediate by its nature? If I ask, say, whether you want to go to a ball game with me which starts in an hour so we need to go, there's kind of an immediacy inherent in that request, isn't there?
Yet that's not half of it. I'm being encouraged to enter the sweepstakes right away, to 'accept or surrender' a bid for $10 million dollars. Accept or surrender are in bold block letters. I'm not at all sure that choosing to simply not participate in a drawing amounts to some kind of surrender. Maybe I just don't want to play. I don't feel like I'm surrendering anything worthwhile.
I entered. But under duress.
They only offered scratch off tickets then, the kind that you instantly win (or generally lose) with, and few retailers initially had the state lottery. One Saturday night early on, Mom and Dad and us kids started playing the lottery, oh, at about 6 in the evening. We'd pony up our bucks, as the tickets were a dollar each at the time, and me Pops and me drove down to a store on Dix Road in Lincoln Park. It was eight or nine miles from home but the nearest place we knew that had lottery. He'd bring the tickets back to the house and we'd each scratch ours off. There were always enough small winners to merit going back out.
Which we did, several times. If I had to guess I'd say we made ten trips from downtown Detroit to Lincoln Park, me Pops and I, never having won more than a few dollars at a time yet enough to fuel our lottery fever. It reached the point where Dad and I had the only winners. And of course, we each won another few bucks with that. It got to where we never left the parking lot of that party store until our winnings and a little bit more were spent. I think we sat in that lot a half an hour, scratching tickets, winning a bit, going back in, then scratching those in the car. And all the while cackling like idiots at the absurdity of it. I rarely heard the old man laugh so heartily, so insanely, as that night.
Who started it I don't know. But you know how it is: laughter, especially uproarious laughter, often feeds itself. It stokes its own coals. I mean, we were both laughing harder than hell. We'd say we were done after these tickets, and then win three dollars and start again. We laughed until we hurt; laughed until we cried. It was just bizarre. Anyone walking by and noticing the two morons in the old Polara wagon had to have thought we were nuts. But for me and me Pops, it was a fun time.
So I haven't won the lottery. But it kinda felt like I did that night.
I hate yard work. Despise it really. I like a well manicured lawn and brightly flowered gardens and great green trees. But I hate the chores that go into creating and maintaining them. I hate mowing the lawn and planting foliage and mulching gardens. And this time of year, I hate raking leaves.
Why can't we just let them rot on the ground? Isn't that simply nature's own recycling measure? Freddie the Leaf wants to become compost. He takes a bizarre, sublime, cloying delight in the thought. Shouldn't we stay out of the way and let him and his brother and sister leaves go back to be with Mother Nature as they wish? Isn't that what she wants too, to bring them home so that she can fashion them into more and greater leaves next summer?
I say, who am I to stand in Momma's way?
While returning from Electric Eel I stopped at a McDonald's in Bellfontaine, Ohio for breakfast. I ordered a meal with a large coffee. The cashier gave me my coffee and said someone would bring my food to my table. So I went and sat with my drink and began surfing the net on my phone.
A few minutes later a young woman brought me my meal...with another coffee. "Uh, they gave me my coffee already," I said.
"Oh," she replied. Then she smiled and said, "Do you want another? I just have to pour it out if I take it back."
"Sure," says I. No $1.6 billion dollars, but hey.
A couple hours later I was at a rest area and decided I wanted a candy bar. I put my money in the machine and made my selection. Lo and behold, two candy cars fall out of the slot. You know what that means?
I'm supposed to play today's lottery because I obviously wasn't intended to win yesterday.
About a month after Charlie mustered out of the Army, as we sat anticipating some waste of time on TV one night, we decided we wanted pizza. As we drove to the pizza parlor we came across dozens, maybe a hundred, small pieces of paper strewn across the street. "What are they?" Charlie wondered allowed.
"They look like lottery slips," I responded. While Michigan like many other states still has scratch offs, many lottery tickets by then were printed by computer and had bar code identification.
My son asked, "Want to pick them up?" I knew what he thinking, because I was curious about the same thing. But I said, "They've gotta be losers or they wouldn't be all over the street." Still, an overlooked small winner might pay for our food, and lottery tickets are bearer items. Maybe we might luck up...
I pulled over the van and we began collecting what were indeed lottery slips. And there were several dozen. Once gathered, we went to a nearby party store to check them out.
Fortunately, with the bar codes, we were able to check the tickets at a scanner rather than be pests to the clerk. With each scanned paper I think Charlie and I both held our breaths slightly, hoping for some bit of good news, our anticipation oddly building with every loser. Perhaps the next one would be the one! Sadly, there were no major or minor winners. Our effort was for nil.
Still, the thought that maybe we had passed up on some small windfall would have haunted me, and maybe my son, until this day. I'm glad we at least tried. And we did get all that litter off the street.
There were only scratch off tickets then, the kind that you instantly win (or generally lose) with, and few retailers initially offered the state lottery. One Saturday night early on, Mom and Dad and us kids started playing the lottery oh, at about 6 in the evening. We'd pony up our bucks as the tickets were a dollar each at the time and me Pops drove down to a store on Dix Road in Lincoln Park. It was eight or nine miles from home but the nearest place we knew that had lottery. He'd bring the tickets back to the house and we'd each scratch ours off. There were always enough small winners to merit going back out.
Which we did, several times. If I had to guess I'd say we made ten trips from downtown Detroit to Lincoln Park, me Pops and I, never having won more than a few dollars at a time yet enough to fuel our lottery fever. It reached the point where Dad and I had the only winners. And of course, we each won another few bucks. It got to where we never left the parking lot of that party store until our winnings and a little bit more were spent. I think we sat in that lot a half an hour, scratching tickets, winning a bit, going back in, then scratching those in the car. And all the while cackling like idiots at the absurdity of it.
Who started it I don't know. But you know how it is: laughter, especially uproarious laughter, often feeds itself. It stokes its own coals. I mean, we were both laughing harder than hell. We'd say were done after these tickets, and then win three dollars and start again. We laughed until we hurt; laughed until we cried. It was just bizarre. Anyone walking by and noticing the two morons in the old Polara wagon had to have thought we were nuts. But for me and the old man, it was a fun time.
So I haven't won the lottery. But it kinda felt like I did that night.
I'd get lawn service before anything else. I hate yard work with a passion.
I would buy a Stradivarius, but only allow Orange Blossom Special to be played on it. Okay, and The Devil Went Down to Georgia. It's just a fancy fiddle after all, isn't it?
I would completely rehabilitate the Old Barn. Lord knows she needs it.
I'd donate heavily to St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital.
I'd buy seasons tickets for one year only for the Detroit Tigers, and go to every game that year. And make someone else bring me hot dogs of course. Hell, I might even ride the Ferris Wheel and Merry Go Round. Or at least pay for a couple hundred kids to ride them.
Yeah, my dreams are simple.
I was lumbering back from the old barn yesterday morn and Mother happened to be perched on her front stoop. O'course I sat with her for a spell, just to chat. "The lottery's pretty big tonight," she comments after a few pleasantries.
"That's what I hears, yes," replies I.
She asks, seemin' to merely inquire to the air about her, "What d'the tickets cost?"
Answers I, "Two bucks each".
Mother commences to fumble through her wallet and thrusts four dollar bills at me. "When you get yours buy me two," she blithely commands. Funny, I'd naught spoken about purchasing any a'tall.
Still, then, I dutifully purchased a pair o'Powerball tickets that afternoon (what kind of boy would not do such a simple favor for his old mum?) and delivered them back to her. And she called it, I purchased me own as well. I was at the party store anyway, eh?
Perhaps she's a millionairess by now. One that knows how much her boy loves her as well too, no doubt.
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