MY OWN PRIVATE I OWE

Blog number 263 **** 22 December 2008

I walked to the corner a few minutes ago to the mail box. On the way back I noticed a piece of paper lying on the sidewalk. Picking it up, I noticed it was a used Lottery ticket. There were four scratch-off bingo cards.

All across on card one, you get $2. All across on card two, $3. Card three, $10. Card four, $25.

Card one had three lines full except for one square. Missed by "that much."

Card two had three lines full except for one square. Missed by "that much."

Card three had two lines full except for one square. Missed by "that much."

Card four had three lines full. except for one square. Missed by "that much."

Each card came SO close to being a winner. Jest one leetle square. Two at the most.

Now, you could also win $25, $50, $150, $250 IF you get all four corners on each card. And again, we missed by one on each card except for two on bad luck card number three. Almost won again!

I could picture the buyer of this scratcher thinking, "Oh, oh, I'm winning! "I'm still winning! I'm still winning! Oh, damn!" four times in four minutes probably, and all it cost him was $2 for the privilege of being taken for a fool by the very people elected by him and his neighbors to make his life better than it is. His government.

If none of the scratch-offs on this card won and the numbers that came up were none of the numbers that could be used for winning, the end result would be the same, would it not? But wouldn't the result be more truthful? You ain't gonna win, why not just come out and show that right off instead of building up false hope? Because people would stop buying lottery tickets, that's why!

All lotteries used to be illegal. To protect the poor and the ignorant. Even church Bingos were illegal, but usually tolerated. Hard to believe, isn't it?

I remember when California first came out with a lottery, in one high school the seniors bought five hundred dollars worth of lottery tickets in order to raise money for their senior prom. They didn't win anything. Not a dime. I think those kids got a lot more than five hundred dollars worth of education the day they checked those losing numbers.

What kind of a moral, caring culture encourages things like lotteries to exist, advertise them with subtle lies and innuendoes as a way to make money? "You can't win if you don't play."

No, and you can't lose either.

Bah.

Humbug,