You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy™
Throwing away 40 million dollars.
I feel like I flushed a dream down the tubes. It’s swirling around the drain, being sucked into a greased filled pit of oblivion.
What I did was so careless, the Gods of fortuitous irony will strike me with a thunderbolt.
My fatuous tale begins Wednesday. That’s when a South Carolina resident wins the 400 Million dollar power ball ticket.
Like you, I watched the news, checked my ticket, now worth exactly the same as a grocery store receipt, and threw it away.
As I tossed it in the dumpster at work, I cursed it, crumpled it, and demanded more from it.
Like you, I was disappointed. As the the crumpled ball of dreams floated into the disgusting work dumpster, I watched my dreams evaporate into a cess pool of stagnant water and yesterday’s coffee grinds.
So many dreams now floating in swill. I was going on that big trip to Spain. I was going to buy that new Red racing Jag. I was planning to dance on tables in Rio with a rose in my teeth till the sun rose over the horizon.
Then – back to reality. Back to work. Back to bills and life’s assorted B.S. My dreams had been crushed like an aluminum can under Oprah’s Radio Flyer wagon full of ass lard.
The next day, I see the big sign on the highway that says Power Ball Jackpot: 40 million dollars.
A paltry 40 million, I think to myself. It’s not like you couldn’t buy lunch with 40 million, right?
“I guess I’ll have to buy another ticket, and start the dream all over again,” I mutter to myself, quietly flipping the bird to the driver ahead of me.
Then suddenly a red light blasts across my frontal lobe as I remember.
“Hey wait. That ticket still had 2 lives left”
I bought three draws on that one ticket.
What does that mean to those of you who don’t have a wagering issue? It means I just threw a ticket in the dumpster that is in play for Saturday night’s 40 million dollar drawing and if nobody wins, Wednesday’s 60 million dollar drawing.
In my frustration of losing the big one, I forgot, I still was in the game for the little one. If 40 million can be considered the little one.
I lost my focus and now Karma is surely going to make me pay.
I have thrown a ticket in the garbage dumpster that has a 1 in 170 million chance of wining Wednesday night.
Damn, I’m pissed.
I start searching my brain, wondering if it’s in my pocket, or center console.
Nope. It’s in the work dumpster. I’m sure of it.
I am distressed. I imagine seeing those balls tumble out of the machine and the announcer screaming good luck.
I imagine the news saying someone in Franklin Tennessee won 40 million dollars at the local Publix.
I imagine my own news station asking me to do live shots outside the Publix talking to shoppers all wondering who the newest millionaire is.
And all along, I imagine, that winner is me.
I imagine having to dumpster dive for the winning ticket. I imagine wading through papers and coffee grounds and old spaghetti sauce. I imagine vomiting on myself, pushing past a dumpster of used kleenex and chewing tobacco spit.
I imagine cursing and screaming and anxiously banging the side of the rusty dumpster wondering how I could be so stupid and throw away this life changing moment.
I wonder if it is even in the dumpster. I imagine the 40 million dollar ticket picked up by a peregrine sea gull and dropped in a hobo’s soiled lap leaning against the homeless shelter?
I imagine this scraggly faced bum using the ticket to wipe the spam out of his matted beard.
“What’s this?” the half blind half drunk wonders.
I envision him walking into the local liquor store and fumbling for coins and food stamps.
I see the clerk accidentally put the crumpled ticket in the powerball reader and then look up like he has just found the holy grail.
“You won,” the clerk from some Middle Easter land will say astonished to the barely sober miscreant.
A week later, the now sober, now well groomed multi millionaire with an affinity for Night Train Wine will face the media and answer questions about how his life has changed over night.
“When did you go to Franklin to buy the ticket?” a reporter will ask.
The millionaire bum smiles. He has no answer. He was brought his fortune by a misguided crack addicted sea gull.
I imagine walking up to the bum, Charles Manson’s anger surging through my veins. I see myself throttling him by his scrawny neck as news reporters find a new lead story for the day.
I shake my head like an etcha sketch, wiping the depressing image from my thoughts. I am depressed I have wasted 4 dollars on two draws and blown a possible $60 million.
I guess I’ll have to buy another ticket Saturday Night, I lament.
Then the glass is half full part of me kicks in. Wait a minute.
Maybe this is all part of God’s master plan. With two draws left to play on one ticket, I would have never purchased a new ticket for Sautrday night’s drawing and maybe that new ticket is the winning ticket.
Maybe I am walking through life’s pre-determined door, only because a series of cosmic tumblers all turned a certain way.
Because I threw away 2 free power ball draws, I am at the store buying a fresh play, the winning play.
Like Charlie and his golden ticket, perhaps this Chocolate bar contains the answer to my dreams.
And like that the Powerball fever sweeps over me yet again.
I am excited and back in “dream mode.”
I have hours before the next draw. I am driving my Jag and dancing on my table at sunrise in Rio and strangely, I am now partying with a well coiffed gentleman who has a penchant for Night Train wine and Spam.
Life’s Crazy™