My mom has at all times cherished lottery scratch tickets.
She doesn’t purchase them with reckless abandon, however each on occasion, she enjoys a great scratching session.
After I was somewhat lady, I’d beg my mom to purchase me a scratch ticket.
She at all times let me have one among her greenback scratch-offs to maintain me busy within the backseat of the automobile on the trip dwelling.
Again then, there was a well-liked one-dollar scratch ticket based mostly on the innings of a baseball recreation. It was my favourite scratch ticket.
I cherished to scratch off the little baseballs on the entrance of the ticket and watch my fingernails flip black.
My mom didn’t purchase it for me, after all. She was simply permitting me to scratch it for her for enjoyable.
Now, my understanding of this lottery ticket was this: If any of the numbers behind my baseballs was greater than the quantity behind the sport baseball, then the ticket was a winner.
I used to be unsuitable.
Any quantity “equal to or greater than” was a winner. See the place I’m going right here?
After I scratched the ticket and confirmed that not one of the numbers was greater than the sport ball, I tossed it out the window.
I do know there are quite a lot of issues with this. The primary downside is that I shouldn’t be tossing issues out the window; I do know that now.
The second downside is that I knew one among my baseballs was equal to the baseball on the far proper aspect of the ticket — the baseball I thought I used to be presupposed to beat.
For this reason youngsters shouldn’t play the lottery. I do know it’s not the primary purpose, however it’s a great purpose.
Not less than it was a ok purpose for my mom as soon as she discovered what I’d performed.
“It nonetheless haunts me to at the present time,” my mom informed me. “Who is aware of how a lot cash you threw out the automobile window onto the freeway? I can solely hope somebody discovered the ticket and cashed it in. Not less than it will have gone to good use.”
It’s been a very long time since that day, and I nonetheless bear in mind it prefer it was yesterday.
The silver-black residue below my fingernails, the frustration at coming so near beating the goal quantity solely to match it as a substitute, the knowledge that the ticket was a loser, then cranking open the window and throwing the offending ticket into the wind.
The worst of it wouldn’t have occurred if I had discovered to not be a litterbug sooner. So possibly I deserved the loss. Then once more, it wasn’t my ticket within the first place.
Tracey Folly is a author who has been contributing life-style and relationship content material to the Web since 2009.
This text was initially revealed at Medium. Reprinted with permission from the creator.
