This week Superstition slithered its way into my lottery experience.
I was away from home until late Saturday afternoon, so I rushed to PLC as I drove into town. The parking lot was empty, which I found unusual but thought, “Good, this won’t take long and I can get a snack while I’m here, because I am really, really hungry”
I trotted up to the door and yanked it open. It didn’t open. It was locked. The handwritten note said, “Closed for today.” Who ever heard of a stop-and-rob closing for the day? Especially closed on a Saturday! I was distressed. This messed up my whole “same numbers, same place, same day” thing I had going. I heard Superstition’s chuckle.
Oh well. There is another stop-and-rob a mile away, so off I went. This parking lot was full. This store was full. There was one lonely clerk and two long lines of customers. One line snaked down the car stuff aisle and the other line wound down the snack cake aisle. They merged in the space in front of the counter. It was like traffic merging through construction on an interstate, each person anxious not to let someone get ahead.
I was in the car stuff line and getting hungrier by the second. It took 30 minutes to inch my way to the clerk. I was hot, tired, inpatient and very hungry. But I put a smile on my face – after all, it wasn’t her fault the store was crowded – and held out my well-used number slip and my three dollars. Guess what? The lottery machine was out of paper! I had no way to get my ticket! Superstition chuckled louder.
This was dreadful! I just knew – knew it for a fact – that tonight of all nights, my super-duper numbers would finally, at long last would be the winning numbers. I was in despair.
I have been very lax in checking numbers, because I had lost every time and was tired of looking at numbers that weren’t mine. Not this week. I could not wait to begin what I knew – knew for a fact – would be the life-long misery of knowing my great chance of WINNING BIG had been lost to a locked door and a lack of paper. Superstition laughed out loud at me. Superstition laughed all evening.
At 10:05 pm I was on the lottery website.
At 10:05:01 pm I laughed at Superstition.
I was actually happy my numbers didn’t come up.
Superstition slithered away.