20030918   

Michael considered fate at 14:10   |   Permalink   |   Post a Comment

I've never bought a lottery ticket in my whole stinkin' life. Not once. Here in Maine the jackpots are usually a little anemic anyway: 1.3 million one week, .9 the next. .9 million dollars is not a whole lotta cash, folks. Not at all. Not when you just got a bill in the mail for $89 Billion.

But Powerball doesn't happen here in Maine and we're probably better off for it. Hoping for a chance at $168 million dollars every year is bound to put a toll on the human heart, as only dashed hope can. Imagine that great job, the one you've wanted your whole life, imagine it opening up and imagine going in for the interview. Imagine, if you will, the clean pressed clothes and happy plastic smile you'd be wearing at the interview and the hearty handshake you'd give. Imagine all that want, that need, bottled up inside, right behind that plastic smile. Think of all the pressure the guilt the anxiety the love the want the hate the greed the need. And then, when you're done with all that, think of loosing all the control you might have had in that situation. Imagine it is all left to chance.. a tiny impossibly small chance. Imagine they want to pay you $168 million dollars.

That's what the powerball is to me and it's dark and evil in all it's bright-eyed hopefulness. I think I'd honestly rather a chance at 100 dollars with a $10 ticket than I would $168 million for a $5 ticket. Economics of scale - but in an inversely proportional sort of way.

Imagine everyone around you getting cancer. Think of all your friends getting AIDS and Ebola and SARS. Consider yourself lucky as you walk, free from any diseases, from one hospital bed to another. Imagine all your friends looking up at you in awe, in hope, in fear of what will happen to them if you don't touch them with your pure heart, your clean soul, your healthy body. Think of the power the pressure the hurt the pain.

That's what the powerball would be like to me in all it's glory. A curse a plague an epidemic of health when all around you lay sick and dying people.

I'm not saying money solves all problems. I'm saying money solves all hope. With money there isn't any need for hope or faith or love anymore and that can only be dark and evil.

I did play a scratch ticket once.

I lost.