NOT A LOTTO LUCK

I have never purchased a lottery ticket.

Hard to believe, I know, what with all the hundred million dollar purses you keep reading about. But I swear on a stack of bingo cards it’s true.

Not that there’s anything wrong with playing the lottery, but I have my reasons for abstaining. Two, to be exact.

Reason number one -- I am not lucky when it comes to games of chance. Now, some people are born lucky. Take the Irish, for instance. They have a lucky mascot (the Leprechaun), a lucky cereal (Lucky Charms) and a lucky school (Notre Dame).

Or consider my cousin. If he puts on a pair of pants he hasn’t worn in a while, he always finds money in the pockets. Once, he even found a twenty in a pair of pants he tried on at a department store.

Me? I never find anything of value -- unless collecting lint balls and ticket stubs suddenly becomes a cottage industry.

I have never won anything of any substance. Not even a free taco at Taco Bell. But I’m okay with it. In fact, when the neighbors gather for poker night, I simply drop off a check and call it a night.

But the primary reason I don’t purchase lottery tickets is my fear of winning.

You see, with all of my unluck over the years, I figure my odds of winning the lottery are significantly higher than the average person. Call it Murphy’s Law of the Lottery.

While this theory might beg for a test, I will not do it because I know what happens to the winners, their family and friends: Bad things.

I am a true believer in the adage that money changes people. It changes the people that have it, and it changes the people around them that don’t. The more the money, the greater the change. In most cases, the changes are not for the better, either.

You might be thinking: Then give it away if you win.

Easier said than done. Lottery winners are bombarded with donation requests the moment their names surface in the public domain. Most requests are from reputable charities. Some are from Bob’s Center for Cosmic Healing and Ten Minute Oil Change.

Then there’s Uncle Al, who only needs a couple hundred thousand to get his synthetic rice farm up and running. Or Cousin Sue, who could use fifty grand to fund the launch of her picture-frame billboard business.

All worthy causes, but where does it end?

I haven’t even touched on the changes that take place within the immediate family. I think I read somewhere that one lottery winner was sued by his son for a raise in his allowance, from ten dollars per week to a thousand dollars per week. Seems the boy was trying to support a heavy candy habit.

Ultimately, they settled out of court. But the damage was done.

So I say to the lottery board: Keep your millions. Give them to one of those poor fellows you see on the television show "Cops". You know the guy -- unemployed, trying to support eight children by three ex-wives and still find time to redecorate his double-wide. The guy will never find anything of value in his pants pockets because he doesn't appear to own any. Let him deal with the dark side of sudden wealth.

Me, I’d be completely happy if I won a free taco at Taco Bell. Just leave it at that.

(c) Marc L. Prey 2002
All rights reserved.