However, since the odds are so astronomical on these, and I'm not picking any particular numbers, I generally ignore the results for like 3 months, until the pile of tickets (which I carry around in my pocket) starts to be cumbersome ... generally every 3 months or so. At that point I'll go over to the 7-11 and run them through the scanner.
Over time, I will eventually hit pretty close to the stated odds on the games ... not much, but better than the proverbial kick in the teeth. Again, I'm "buying hope" here.
A few weeks back, I took my tickets in to scan, and found that one of them was worth $500 ... pretty sweet! Unfortunately, none of the lottery vendors around here keeps that much out of the safe at any given time, so I went another couple of weeks before cashing it in (I eventually had the 7-11 guys set up a time for me to come in, when they'd have that much held out for me).
All, happy-happy-joy-joy, right?
Well ...
The guy paying off my ticket asked if I knew what the numbers were ... which I didn't. It turns out that getting a $500 win means that one has missed having a "winning" winning ticket by ONE number. One number. Yep, I was that close to "WINNING THE LOTTERY".
Which, of course, feels like a big "HAH-HAH" from the universe ... with the emotional impact not being "ooh, I have five hundred bucks that I didn't have before" (well, that I guess I did have before, but doled it out $6/week playing the games over a bit over a year and a half) but "you LOST again, sucker!" (sort of something like this).
Another "kick me" sign on Brendan's back ... another grind of the universe's boot heel ...
