So, I bought my final lottery ticket. I did not win. My total winnings for this entire project come to $12.00.
This final blog is the seven things I have learned. I know ten is the traditional list-making number. But seven symbolizes completion and I have now completed this project.
Here are the seven things, not necessarily in the order of importance:
- The lottery is a mugs game. Winning is right up there with the Impossible Dream. I have heard you have a better chance of being struck by lightning twice than you have of making the BIG WIN.
- 15 is a lousy powerball number. I bought many many more than 52 lottery tickets and 15 came up only twice as the powerball number.
- Deadlines mean nothing to me. I made a deal with myself to write this blog every Monday afternoon for 52 weeks. It has taken me years to finish.
- I am not focused. I would start to write about one aspect of lotterying and who knows where I would end up.
- I really, really like the word so. Sooo, I will say no more about that.
- There is a huge turnover in clerks at the local stop-and-rob. The good thing about that? I met many nice people.
- I am surprised at how much hope for the BIG WIN had creeped into my thinking. This week I drive around my town and see the buildings I would save and I hear of the programs I would support. But I know I have no hope of doing those things. I did not win and I will not play the lottery again. I feel a deep sense of loss that I now have no hope of doing those good things. This loss of hope, the hope of “what could have been”, has made deciding how to spend a little winning as hard as deciding how I would spend a big winning.
As to No. 7, I finish this project with the decision on how I will use my $12.00 winnings. I bought socks for the local homeless shelter.
The Lotteryist is over.
On to the next blog project – Across County Lines