The Losing Ticket

Episode 7:
At O’Hare International Airport, the people that line up to buy MegaMillions tickets at the state’s kiosk wear uniforms. They are not traveling to Vail or Burbank or Miami. They are buying tickets at the end of their shifts, or they are buying tickets during mandatory breaks from jobs that may involve removing gum from the airport’s many urinals.

Their uniforms divulge their first names because it is their employer's policy, while I possess my anonymity from them. Their names include Hector, Celeste, Svetlana, and Manny. They wear navy blue and brown uniforms as not to show grime so easily. I am wearing French cuffs and cuff links. The cracker convention went very well for me.

If you are 59 years old and limping around the airport in steel-toed boots, you cannot afford to miss your chance at the mega millions. This week’s pot is worth $95 million.

On the other hand, I can afford not to play MegaMillions because I am young and beautiful and supremely cocky. I am certain that when I am 90 years old, my piss will flow freely through my donut-shaped prostate and I will be making love to women half my age at a resort on the Big Island.

I have never played lotto. Lotto is for the hopeless. Blackjack and Craps in Vegas, yes. And I have always walked away richer because I have options.

There is plenty of money to be made in the cracker business. Everyone eats crackers. The poor eat saltines and I sell those, too. The rich appear to eat a lot of Waterford wafers. On the Waterford box, the makers depict wafers with lox and a frilly herb that could be dill. On the saltine box, they depict no such accoutrements. I suspect the poor eat their saltines with butter, or they crumble them into condensed soup.

Charlie Ray plays lotto. I know this because he carries a losing ticket in his wallet. Charlie’s (un)lucky numbers are 3-9-12-18-and 23.

Today, I am going to play MegaMillions in honor of Charlie Ray Dalton. I use one of Charlie’s dollars and four of my own. I use Charlie’s lucky numbers and four random sets. I am arrogant today, but not so egotistical to portend to understand that which is arbitrary in the universe.



Speaking of a Losing Ticket, how about McCain and Palin?