I'm Pretty Sure Marilyn Is Not a Fan of ME, Either

New lottery tickets (heh, heh, when I first typed that it showed up as LOOTERY tickets) come out the last Monday of every month. I generally buy the newest ones for a week or two, because even though winners are supposedly random, there are lots of winners in the early days, and then they level off to the regular odds.

Last month, one of the new tickets was Marilyn Monroe. I'm not a fan of Marilyn. I guess maybe she was before my generation. She was just too cutesy for me, what with singing happy birthday to the President like that. It was a man's world back then, and she played right along with it. Heck, she was probably an asset for the CIA. There are several conspiracies concerning Marilyn, you know. But conspiracytheoryologist Val doesn't even care enough to look into them.

I'm definitely not a fan of Marilyn after buying her tickets. First of all, they were hard to scratch! A quarter would barely do it, and you had to have a really solid surface under Marilyn. The rim of a nickel worked a little better, but I still almost threw out my elbow every time I had to scratch Marilyn.

I buy tickets every day, and of all the Marilyns I purchased, I might have won $5 overall. Not even Marilyn's special box could make me like her. The special box was like a second chance. Or a first chance. If you revealed a letter 'M' you could win the prize underneath. Which might have been something good, or just $5. I even sent two Marilyns to Genius, and he didn't mention winning a fortune. I'm pretty sure he would, if he won one.

The Gas Station Chicken Store had a big Marilyn promotion going on. They even had Marilyn standing in their aisle for two weeks.

Apparently, I was not the only one miffed at Marilyn. One day I dared complain at the counter that I was done with Marilyn, because she made me feel like a loser. And the Lady Owner said, "On Friday, we're all going to rough her up a little bit."

Monday of this week, a representative of the Missouri Lottery was there in-store, for the Marilyn promotion. Let the record show that I DID NOT win anything on the second-chance drawing you could enter my putting your losing Marilyns in a cardboard box with a slot on top, having filled in your name and phone number on the back. I guess one of the other losers was the winner.

Anyhoo...this Rep had a table set up off to the left side. There's really not much off-to-the-side available in The Gas Station Chicken Store. She was blocking the aisle with the Bud Light and the Santa head. You had to come up that aisle there where Marilyn is standing, to get in line for the promotion. I overheard the Lady Owner telling others that if you bought at least two Marilyn tickets, you could spin the wheel.

Well. I buy scratchers every day. But I didn't want to waste my picks on Loser Marilyn. I did, however, want to spin the wheel. I didn't know the prizes on the wheel, but hey, who doesn't want to spin the wheel? When the Owner Lady rang up my 44 oz Diet Coke, and asked if there would be anything else (knowing darn good and well that I buy a ticket every day), I said, "Okay. I guess I'll take two Marilyns. But I feel strong-armed!"

I took my two Marilyns and got in line behind a scrawny guy. His lady friend had been ahead of me, also buying two Marilyns. Dude had said, "You buy the tickets, and I'll pick the prize. I'd buy them myself if I knew I'd win a T-shirt." He seemed to have a Hick-like attitude of what's yours is mine, and what's mine is mine.

Anyhoo...as luck (or that dastardly Even Steven) would have it, that lady won a T-shirt, and Dude picked it out. I think they were all the same, black, with Marilyn on the front. But I guess he needed to make sure it would fit his scrawny frame. Nobody wants a blowsy Marilyn.

I spun the wheel, and it landed on SUNGLASSES. That was fine with me. In fact, that's what I would have picked for my prize if I had a choice. I don't know what the other prizes were, besides a T-shirt, but I saw the sunglasses laying there on the table. Only orange and pink were left. My choice would have been green, but what ya gonna do? I at least had free sunglasses.

As I was picking up my shades, the Rep said I could also have some of the other stuff on the table. So I got THIS:

The two tickets weren't free. They're the ones I paid $10 for to win the 99-cent sunglasses. That's my losing Marilyn on the right, and the (probably) losing Marilyn on the left that's being sealed up in an envelope tonight, and going to Genius tomorrow.

I also raked in a GREEN chip clip, really strong. And a mini notebook with its own pen, and the official MOLottery logo on the front.

It's not as good as an American Tourister suitcase from the casino, but it cost me a lot less to get it for free.