Tuesday, April 18, 2017

Which Came First, the Good Deed or the Luck?

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Here! Take my hand! Sorry to leave you danglin' overnight. Come on back up here on solid ground and sit a spell while I tell you the rest of the story.

When we last convened, Val was headed for the Casey's General Store to put some gas in T-Hoe. She was worried about the smell of natural gas that had blanketed the area a couple hours earlier. No sign of the gas leak, so T-Hoe got a healthy snort of super unleaded, and Val got a scratch-off ticket. Let the record show that Val is not one of those people who stand at the counter scratching, then shoves a winner right back across to take another. Nope. Val hauls her tickets home to scratch at her leisure, down in her dark basement lair (with the lights on) while sipping her 44 oz Diet Coke.

But first I had to buy my 44 oz Diet Coke. I headed to the gas station chicken store. Their Diet Coke is especially delicious. My favorite parking space was available! I gathered my correct change and headed toward the door. What's THIS?

On the little homemade blacktop ramp they have in place of a step into the door, I saw something. Having picked up a trashy coffee cup on their lot before and disposed of it, I gave this refuse the eye. Wait a minute! That was a $5 bill! Folded all cattywompus, triangling back on itself, like somebody had stuffed that bill into a front pocket after wadding it up a little.

I bent to pick up that $5 bill. Not caring if somebody heading out the glass door disregarded my bowing noggin and made me see stars. Not caring who might be getting too much of a view of my ample buttocks, while sitting in one of the cars waiting at the traffic light over past the grassy area where blog buddy Sioux saw the 150-year town anniversary wooden birthday cake. We're lucky she didn't try to pop out of it and do a dance (with thumbs and little kicks), since the police back then were probably already on their way from the gas station chicken faux pas she pulled by putting herself-on-a-stick upon the soda fountain.

Anyhoo...yesterday I picked up that $5 bill and stepped inside.

"Look what I found in front of your door!" I handed it across the counter to the little Asian clerk guy who sometimes gives me a tip on recently-sold winners so I don't waste my purchase. "Do you think somebody will come back looking for it?"

Clerk Guy shot his eyes at Chicken Gal. In unison, they said, "Probably." Clerk Guy painstakingly unfolded that fiver, and set it aside.

"If nobody claims it, I guess you two can fight it out." I went to the fountain for my magical elixir. "You never know. It could be somebody's last five dollars. Or maybe somebody was going to use it to buy a lottery ticket."

No good can come of keeping something that's not yours, you know. Sure, I could have used that $5 bill to buy a scratch-off ticket. Maybe it would have been a big jackpot winner. Maybe I'll read about it in the paper tomorrow, that one of those workers won big on a ticket bought at the gas station chicken store. But maybe that was all the money somebody had left until Friday payday. And they needed a couple of gallons of gas to get them to work. All I know is...that $5 bill didn't belong to me, so I turned it in.

Sure, those workers might have laughed their not-so-ample buttocks off after I left. "Can you BELIEVE IT? She turned in money she found on the parking lot! More for us!"

Or they might have thought I did the right thing.

I bought two tickets while I was there. Turns out one of them won five dollars. But the one I got at the non-gassy Casey's?


I wonder if Karma and Even Steven are psychic. Or simply like to test people.

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UPDATE WEDNESDAY (4-19-17) at 2:30 p.m.

Looks like that good deed DID come before the luck. Today (Wednesday, 4-19-17) I took some of my winnings and bought two of the Golden Tickets (at two different locations) and both were winners. The first was for $60, so I doubled my investment. The second winner? Take a gander at THIS:

That's a $500 winner.

You've gotta ride the wave while it's cresting, my friends!


17 comments:

  1. Val--Since I am ig-nrant when it comes to lottery tickets, does that mean you won $100 or $200?

    Either way, what a lucky lady you are.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That means that I won $200. I had 2 times the prize of $100.

      I am lucky in many ways.

      Delete
  2. You did it again!!

    ReplyDelete
  3. If it was a test, you passed with flying colors.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I don't know what that means, but I'm guessing it's good.

    I'd have kept the fin. I've lost as much.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It's good. I won $200.

      So you're acting as your own Even Steven...

      I'm glad there weren't any young toughs hiding in the bushes, with that five tied to the end of a fishing line, making me chase it across the parking lot!

      Delete
  5. Karma plus two. Or just making up a little for all the weirdness in your life.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I always seem to achieve a balance. Though I'm never sure when I'm in the abyss, struggling to reach the summit.

      Delete
  6. Technically I guess the luck came first but who knows, maybe Karma would have stepped in and you might have dropped that ticket if you had pocketed the $5

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes. Technically, the luck did come first. So maybe the $5 was a test to see if I am worthy of continued good luck. We'll see...

      Delete
  7. You are one lucky lady. How much do these tickets cost? How do I get a winner?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That's probably a rhetorical question, but here goes...

      THESE tickets are the high rollers of Missouri scratchers. They are the $30 Golden Ticket. I stashed winnings from my usual $5 ticket wins, and when I had a good stockpile, I started buying some 10-dollar tickets here and there. That's what I won my $1000 on.

      It's a crushing blow if the $30 is a loser. I know there are 20 tickets on a roll, and one $100 winner per roll. Overall, each roll has 7 winners. Odds are 1 in 2.83, I think, of getting a winner. The lowest winner is $30. Anything over the $100 winner is random and rare.

      I pay attention to the number on my tickets. That $200 winner was ticket number 010. So I won't buy one at that store until they are past 019, on a new book. I just try to improve my odds like that. Most places will tell you what number the next ticket is. It's been working. When it doesn't, I'll go back to the five-dollar tickets for a while.

      Then again, sometimes I just have a hunch where I want to go and buy a specific ticket.

      As my brother-in-law the ex-mayor pointed out, I do way better on the scratchers than I do at the casino.

      Delete
  8. HEY! Make sure you check out my update today, added at the end of this tale.

    ReplyDelete
  9. So ...... that $5 bill I found in front of my store door that I just stuck in the cash register, I should have turned in? To who? HeWho?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Not-Heaven NO! Not to HeWho! You are entitled to it, since it's your cash register. Kind of like the house edge in gambling. Found money is yours!

      Delete