September 5, 2003
Lightning Strikes
A tax on people who are bad at math.
I’ve always scoffed at the lottery. Sure, when I turned 18 I went out and bought a ticket, but that was more a rite of passage than an endorsement of the system. I always jokingly claimed that I plan to win the lottery, but that I had decided that my chances weren’t that much worse if I just waited to find the winning ticket on the ground somewhere.
And then, walking through Laguna Beach, I noticed a bit of paper that caught my eye. Bending down to pick it up, I discovered that it was two of those scratchable lottery tickets, unscratched. My big day had come. Ripping out a nickel I began to scratch furiously at the tickets, revealing what their purchaser had hoped would be riches.
I didn’t win. I mean. Of course I didn’t win. It’s the lottery.
Waste of money, if you ask me.
