Lotto Fever
When no one won the $50 million Oz Lotto jackpot last week, I know I am in trouble. I grip Anthony’s arm tightly when the news announce the jackpot has reached a record-breaking tax free $90 million. While this amount is nothing to scream about if you’re from the US and used to the jackpot being in the hundred-millions, it’s still an eye-popping amount.
“I’ve already bought a ticket,” Anthony announces proudly while patting his brand new iphone—it contains a “lotto shake” application and he’s used it to play the numbers. This is probably the same as playing the numbers off a fortune cookie, but these are desperate times and desperate measures must be taken.
“How many did you buy?” I question. “17? That’s not enough. You need to buy more. I’ll give you some money. Where’s Pig?” (Pig is the free piggy bank given to us by a bank teller at ANZ and I’ve been feeding it the outrageously oversized Oz coins after every shopping endeavor).
“You only need one ticket to win,” Anthony argues.
“That may be so, but what are your chances?” This is probably the only time in my life when I am extremely interested in statistics and I become Ms. Probability and tell him that because his reluctance to increase our odds in the past, we are living in near-squalor and can’t buy a helper monkey.We agree tomorrow, en route to our movie, we will stop by a newsagent and get a few more tickets.
The last time I suffered from Lotto Fever was when Mega Millions in the States went up to $300+ million. For some deluded reason I thought I was holding a winning ticket and stayed up till midnight to match the numbers. While I waited I came up with several different ways to go into work the next day, dramatically late, since I would have to catch up on my sleep from staying up late and celebrating. One scenario involved me arriving in the administration office on the back of a donkey with the words “I QUIT!” spray painted on its ass. When I realized that I didn’t win (after obsessively matching my numbers several times), I let out a bellow of anguish and became despondent and disillusioned. Gone were my dreams of buying a degree in zoology and, what the heck, cryptozoology, and spending my days traveling from zoo to zoo around the world, being all scientific and stuff with the animals but secretly was just playing with them when no one was looking. Gone were my dreams of paying someone enough money to bitch-slap the people who allowed William Hung to make a video and an album. Gone were dreams of dropping Mom off at Zabars with an unlimited budget and buying Dad a chi-pow and a fedora and a ivory cane so he could strut down Main street looking like an old-school Chinese mob boss (It’s hard to buy things for Dad because his whims and wills were kind of sporadic. He might want to buy a Ferrari one day, and the next he’ll want a back scratcher instead, so in my daydreams I felt it’s safer to dress him up and show him off). I felt bad for the charities like SHDIGSI (Supporting Homely Dolls to Improve Girls’ Self-Image) and SFLFBGBFPC (Stop Foreign Leaders From Buying Giant Bunnies For Purposes of Consumption—Yeah, Kim Jong Il, I’m looking at you), because they would not be the recipients of my generous donation. But I was grateful that I didn’t jump the gun and quit my job, as I had intentionally planned, before the lotto drawing.
I’ve learned from the past and I’m not going to allow myself to go off half-cocked with lotto-daydreams this time. Unlike Anthony, who’s planning to run out to the nearest helicopter, er, shop, to buy himself a brand new whirly bird and sign up for lessons, I’m suppressing my urges to fantasize.
Well…maybe I’ll allow myself to just one. There’s nothing wrong dreaming about going to an animal training center and selecting the perfect helper monkey, is there?
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