I Guess This Was Just a Round-About Way of Saying I, Too, Am Playing the Lottery Tonight...

So, have you guys heard about this crazy Mega Millions lottery madness? I'm not a lottery junkie, in that I don't play religiously every week. Boyfriend and I wait until the jackpot reaches over $1 Million and then we'll usually buy a few dollars worth of numbers. Most of the time, it yields nothing, but every now and again, we walk away with 2 whole dollars winners!  People are going completely nutty about winning this thing, though, it's sort of creepy. I bought 10 tickets this morning. I can't quite justify spending more than $10 on gambling (unless we're talking poker, I'm obsessed trying to win at poker.) My mom taught me the best lesson, I think when I was young. Some old lady won a big jackpot once in the Colorado Lotto and on the news they interviewed her and said that she played every week for more than half of her life. In my tiny rose-tinted brain I asked my mom why we didn't play the lottery, we could have a million dollars too! Mom explained to me that with all the money that lady spent just on lotto tickets for 40+ years, she probably pretty much broke even. Maybe it was because of that conversation, or maybe because I'm a little cynical as an adult, but I'm not really interested in gambling a lot. I find the idea of gambling fascinating, but I don't get excited when actually doing it.

Boyfriend and I took a trip down to Atlantic City 2 summers ago to see Penn & Teller. I've been fascinated my magic and illusions since I was a kid and the first time I saw P&T on The New Mickey Mouse Club (90's kids remember) as a kid, I was hooked and couldn't get enough of them! So I obsessed and drove Boyfriend crazy talking about P&T forever and since we couldn't afford to go see them in Vegas, I got super excited when they went on tour and were coming to the east coast. We took a bus from NY to AC and it was...interesting. AC is super ghetto and scary. I would suggest everyone to avoid it at all costs. I was honestly afraid we going to contract something non-curable just walking down the street. We totally saw a drug deal go down behind a church and everything. But I digress.

After some wandering around, asking for directions, and almost getting swindled, we made it to the casino where the show was to be. The ever-careful planner that I am got us there about 3 hours early. Excellent...maybe. We explored the casino, the shiny lights and the clang-clanging of the slot machines were all impressive at first, but then we noticed no one really looked like they were enjoying themselves. We thought we tried playing the penny and nickle slots ('cause we were po') and after about 10 minutes we were a touch bored. Yes. Bored.  We don't quite understand the appeal of sitting inside staring at a slot machine for hours on end with the empty hope of winning. Maybe if we'd been high-rollers and plaid craps or black jack or roulette, the casino might have held our attention longer, but, meh.

Short-story-long, P&T were awesome and everything I hoped they would be and I got autographs and pictures with them after the show and they were so nice and omagoodness I'm getting so excited just remembering the awesomeness of it that I'm typing a ridiculous run on sentence, but I don't care. So even though I felt like the 12 hours that we actually spent in Atlantic City were 11 hours too many, P&T were so worth it!

 

 It's so awesome meeting your heroes and they turn out to be just as awesome in person as you hoped!





What was the point I was trying to make? Oh yeah- I don't usually gamble.   Except this time because a half billion dollars is a lot of money, and without hope and dreams what do we got?


If I woke up as a half-billionaire tomorrow morning, I'd buy some ridiculously awesome shit:

-The Cinderella Suite in DisneyWorld. (That's right. I'd live in a castle. In. DisneyWorld.)

-Hire Penn & Teller for my own private magic shows. (You can all come too, don't worry.)

-1,000 puppies. (From shelters, duh, I'm not crazy.)

Fill a bathtub with cash and roll around in it. (Brand new bills only, I don't know where that shit's been.)

-Contract a biologist, a zoologist, and a geneticist to make me a horse pony.

-And a lifetime supply of duct tape. (Because I'm practical.) 


What awesomeness would you buy if you suddenly became a half-billionaire?


P.S Has anyone ever played the numbers from Lost and won the lottery? That's how I want to win.


P.P.S OK, nevermind.


P.P.S Does this post make my train of thought look derailed?