MEGA MILLIONS — by Steve Nadis
When I had the ticket in hand, I knew it was worthless, a one-in-a-billion shot, at best. But with it lost, and circulating around Central Square somewhere, I couldn’t overcome the conviction that I had lost the winning ticket and that some other bum was going to pick it up and lay claim to all my hard-earned millions. Should I retrace my steps and try to find that small scrap of paper, knowing that finding it would have been another one-in-a-billion shot?
But then I found it in my jacket pocket and, once again, it lost its value almost instantly. In fact, I forgot completely about it later that night and did not even check on the TV news at 11. When I did finally check online later that night, the results were predictable: Not only did I not have the winning numbers, I did not even have one of the six winning numbers.
So it looks like my financial problems were not magically solved after having invested the princely sum of a dollar. I won’t be taking my girls and all their friends out to their favorite restaurant. I won’t be taking my family on that trip to a destination that was so far out of reach, we never even contemplated it. No, it’s back to reality after that brief interval when my “lost” ticket had acquired so much power. I’m going to have to eke out an existence like the rest of the poor slobs out there trying to do the same. But it was a fun ride during the few minutes it lasted.
Had the same feeling when last year I misplaced the only 4 lottery tickets we are "given". (My mother buys them as gifts for us - New Year’s Eve lottery, big thing over here in Greece). Isn’t it weird how the imagination runs loose in an anxiety attack? I was imagining newspaper headlines: Wealthy man finds "stray lottery" buys MORE stocks and property…. Noooooooooooooo!
It’s fun to fantasize but then reality has to rear its ugly head again.
What can I say on this topic? Thoughts are racing through my head. I can say this - if you don’t have a dream and you don’t even try to reach for the stars, you’ll never hold one. Someday I’m going to talk about my windfall and how it came about. It didn’t land in my lap easily.
This particular incident was not a dream, more like a whim–and a forgettable one at that.
As someone interested in acquiring a windfall of his own (who wouldn’t?), I would like to hear about how you came by yours.