But like about a billion other people last week I got caught up in Lottery Fever. When the jackpot went above $500,000,000, I decided to buy a ticket. Actually I bought six tickets, because I wanted to rotate my Mega number on each one. I figured that would give me the best chance of winning.
I was already planning how to spend the big bucks – buy Mudd's of course and endow a reactivated Crow Canyon Institute with a few million. I even thought about tossing a couple of million to the Historic Foundation to restore the Harlan House. Bill Harlan seems like a nice guy, so why not?
Next I'd set up a foundation to help people who lost their homes to foreclosure to keep their pets. Maybe I'd build pet-friendly housing all in all of the States. That would certainly go a long way to eating up the $640,000,000, which is what the top prize finally turned out to be.
Actually they give away about 2/3 of that and another 1/3 is taken by Uncle Sam and Uncle Jerry. So I'd be left with a mere $280,000,000 give or take a few mil.
I bought my tickets at the Nob Hill Market at 11 am on Friday. Then I went to the OSH to buy some catnip. I was surprised to see that OSH removed the Pet Department; so I bought a catnip plant instead. It's actually rather pretty. The plant was only two dollars, which is probably cheaper than dried catnip.
I forgot about the Mega Millions tickets in my purse until the 5 pm news came on. The field reporter was interviewing people lined up around the block in San Leandro to buy their tickets at a "lucky" store. Not a Lucky's but a store that's lucky. I'm not that superstitious, but I looked through my purse and couldn't find one of the tickets. That was the one with five of my picks. When I rotated my Mega, I filled out one card with five picks and another card with the last one.
I had the sixth number, but not the one with the five. That's when I started to panic. Oh dear, my ticket must have fallen out at OSH. Someone has my numbers and will win my jackpot!
I could not let that happen. I didn't have the ticket, but I still had the form I filled out for the five numbers I lost. I dashed up to JV Liquors where I usually by my Super Lotto tickets.
I guess JV isn't as lucky as the store in San Leandro because the line there was much shorter. Only about a dozen would-be winners were lined up to take a chance on becoming part of the 1% overnight.
I bought a new ticket with my five numbers, but I was annoyed that some unworthy person had my numbers and I would have to share my prize with him or her. So I went back to OSH to see if anyone turned in my Mega Millions ticket. Of course nobody had, but it didn't matter because not one of my numbers matched the winning draw.
In a way it was a relief. I don't know what I would have done if I had won and the other person with my numbers showed up at the news conference. Even though I don't need or even want all of that money, I didn't like the idea of someone else using my numbers.
I've been playing the same numbers on Super Lotto for about 20 years. They are mine. I own them. They are a mix of my birth date, my house numbers, and the number of the house I grew up in. They belong to me, and you can't have them.
So I went back to JV Liquors on Saturday to buy a Super Lotto ticket. No one else was there buying a Lottery Ticket on Saturday. The big Mega Million numbers were drawn, and at least one person in Maryland won. I know one person in Maryland. I wonder if it was him.
