Sore Loser

I cannot play the lottery anymore. The NC Education Lottery is supposed to help for funding of our schools here in NC, but I have yet to see how it has actually helped our school system. In fact this year, all teachers received a lovely pay DECREASE in their salary. Nice. Since my mom and several of my cousins and aunts are teachers, I have in the past justified spending a few dollars here and there to help "support them" by playing the Powerball. I usually only played if the lotto was up to $100+ million. I would always choose to have them randomly select my numbers and as I looked over my little piece of paper with the numbers that would forever change my life, I began to dream. I would dream about how the minute I found out I was a millionaire, I would call my boss and let him know that I would not be coming into work that day...or the next...or ever again.

Usually at this point, my excitement had swelled enough that I absolutely had to call my sister to discuss in extreme detail exactly what I would be doing with the remainder of my millions. Since it is impossible to go on a massive shopping trip alone, Melanie would have to go with me and, of course, I would have to give her several thousands of dollars to spend for herself on this trip. We could spend hours on the phone talking in depth of all of the clothes, shoes, purses, and jeans that we would have to purchase. Of course, a large amount of the money would go into savings. Savings for my child's education, savings for retirement (effective immediately), savings for vacations, savings for anything and everything. Bryce would have a great chunk with which he could invest (and turn into even more millions for me to dream about). Charitable organizations would get hooked up like no other (usually I would even do research to determine who I wanted to donate to). Depending on how much money was at stake, my sister and I would determine exactly how much each family member would be getting of these millions. Usually she and her hubby would get $5-10 million and my parents would get $1-2 million, and so on. Next we would determine what vacations we would be going on and which ones would be mutual family vacations, our own family vacations, and then also romantic trips with just our husbands. Japan is always at the top of my list, followed by France, then Italy. This conversation of ours could last hours.

Finally on the day the lotto numbers were picked, I would get on the internet, become a refreshing queen until the numbers were finally posted. I cannot tell you how incredibily heartbroken I was each and every time that I did not win. Not only did I not win, but I did not one single time even get a dollar back to at least break even. I would go into a mild depression for a day or two. The following morning at work was usually hell. I would see the image of my closet full of clothes and shoes and purses, melt away and eventually tears would start to form as I realized my vacation in Japan would not be happening anytime soon. I didn't even need to tell Melanie the bad news, because when I called her the following morning for our usual "on-the-way-to-work-chat" her first question would be "What are you doing?" and I would respond, "Going to work" and I could actually hear her heart sink through the verizon network and 90 miles of highway.