THE SONIC BOOMER
I think I may have to quit playing the lottery. I’ve been playing it for years and, frankly, it is just not working out. I mean, I have never gotten more than one number right.
Ordinarily, I am a very lucky person. I’m lucky in life, and I’m lucky with games of chance. The first scratch-off anyone ever bought for me was good for $100. I win at bingo all the time. And I once hit it so big on a slot machine at a casino that they had to come over with a bucket and refill the machine because I’d emptied it of all its coins and it still owed me.
I’m lucky.
But I can’t win the lotto, not even a little bit.
In the beginning, I assigned a letter to each number because, you know, I’m a letters person. That only got me to 26 so I watched to see how often all the winning numbers landed between 1 and 26.
Not often.
But I was able to spell out 9-12-15-22-5-21 or I-love-U, which I definitely would have had those numbers ever come up.
They didn’t.
Plus, there were probably too many other marginally creative people doing the same thing, and I didn’t want to have to split the pot.
Remarkably, the biggest Powerball jackpot in history was won by a woman who lived in a trailer just 20 miles from my other house in North Florida. The minute the news was out, I ran right over there to see if she wanted to be my friend.
No luck there, either.
But I’m chalking that up as a near miss.
I might have to go out and get myself a lucky talisman of some sort. I don’t like the idea of a rabbit’s foot — unlucky for both me and the rabbit. Four-leaf clovers are pretty difficult to find — I know because I spent half my youth looking for them. And I don’t want to have to lug a horseshoe around in my purse, either.
Maybe, since I’m lucky, I will simply invent the latest thing in talismans. One hefty win and everybody will be carrying one.
It would have to be something that fits in my purse, is light in weight and would be fairly easy to replace if stolen. Ooh, ooh, I’ve got it! The lucky talisman no one will steal — a crumpled Kleenex. Who’d risk bird flu to take it? Nobody! And if I set it discreetly next to me on bingo night, no one would be the wiser. That’s it — My Lucky Kleenex.
Did you know I once won free Chicken McNuggets for a year by guessing how many sauce packets were in a water jug? They gave me a punch card good for two servings a week. Six months later, I accidentally threw out the punch card with my tray liner. Unlucky? Probably not.
But I’ll have to be way more careful with my Kleenex.
