I don’t play lotto. There. I said it. It’s out there now and I can’t take it back. You know what, I don’t even want to! Not even a little! You can save your breath. I’ve heard all the pro-lotto arguments; that it’s cheap, that it benefits the community, that it’s easy – hell, you don’t even have to pick your own numbers! We have computers that do it for us, thank you very much. Well, I sarcastically regret to inform you that your arguments have been briefly entertained and deemed not to be persuasive.
There is, of course, the perennial and trusty probability argument on my side. It’s more likely that lightning would strike me twice while I hid from a meteor shower under a white elephant after getting into a car accident on my way to the store to get a ticket than for me to win the lottery. And I live in Manhattan. I don’t even have a car. Whammo! And that’s just the publicized odds of winning. The fact that I’m a college graduate under the age of 55 who has never lived in any kind of mobile housing unit reduces my chances to almost nil.
I don’t know about you, but I do not support false advertising. If you do, fine. Keep it to yourself, weirdo. Lotto falsely advertises winnings. If you win, say, $325 million, and you split it with three other winners, you should be left with about $108 million. Yet your big check only pays you $58 million. False advertising! Taxes schmaxes! The government runs the game! Just deduct it first! I can almost guarantee that some “poor” slob committed $10 million of his $58 million to charity, thinking he had $108 million, and what’s he gonna do? Take it back? Can’t get the gruel out of the orphan’s stomach without an expensive stomach pump, thereby rendering the process cost ineffective.
No, I don’t and won’t play lotto. I’ll keep my dollar, thank you very much, perhaps make a collect call. I forsake the American Dream – hang out and hopefully a huge pile of money will fall in your lap, or even better, on your head, enabling you to sue the government for making money weigh so much, the lawn chair manufacture for not including a ceiling, and the estate of Sir Isaac Newton for forcing gravity upon you – in favor of a new one: hang out and write little essays and hopefully someone will recognize my talent and throw huge a pile of money at my lap, or better yet, my head…