and i was sober!

i think i came up with one of my best analogies tonight EVER…

…and i was on my home that night SOBER and shit!

it has to do with one of my secret shames/addiction – the “tax on those who are bad at math” as harold calls it:

the lottery

i bought two scratch offs with some gas last night, same ticket, five bucks each. when i called it, a woman at the counter (customer, not clerk) felt the need to “warn me” that that ticket had gone cold at that store, and none of them were winners. when i said i had better odds than this other one, she said, “actually, that one’s pretty good!” – but then i pointed out where the tickets showed the odds at the beginning, which both of these were a bit aged, but the one i picked, at least at the jump in, had about a 25% better chance.

so it felt good when one was a dud, but the other won double, so i at least balanced out.

when i walked back in to claim the “prize” (i.e. “get my money back”) the lady who had warned me against the purchase was shocked i’d won, and even more shocked i would just break even, take cash, and dash. i’ve always had the rule that if i hand the lottery a certain amount of money, and it just hands it right back to me, i do that. but i explained it like this:

“i look at playing the lotto like you’re walking up to a complete stranger, handing him money, and saying to him, ‘here’s some money, please give me more back’. now, most of the time they’re gonna say, ‘fuck you’, and just keep your money and walk away…but if you walk up and hand money to a complete stranger you just HAVE to know that’s the probability. on super rare occasions they’ll give you more back. but on the occasions the lottery does the equivalent of looking at your money and just hands it back to you as if it’s saying, ‘no, you keep it’ you don’t force the issue and really try to make it take it – you take your money back, shrug, and walk away…”

and that’s what i did. i wonder if coming up with that on the fly will make me stop buying this bullshit?