Luck of the draw

I can't believe it's almost 6:00 and I've done nothing today. I've been fooling around at the forum and answering a week's worth of email and dizzing around the net. The muse has completely deserted me. Probably too much sleep.

I slept in till after 9:00 this morning. Would have slept till noon if it wasn't for the thunderstorm. The thunder I could sleep through, but the hail was such a foreign noise that it woke me up. I was hoping for some impressive ice balls, but it was just about pea sized. Still it was worth getting up to see. There was enough so it collected on the ground. Closest thing I saw to snow this year.

Meanwhile, as you can see, North Carolina finally started their lottery. It's only scratch tickets, I prefer a Powerball kind of game myself. Since I never win, I like the lag time to dream about what to do with my winnings should my luck turn. I used to spend about four bucks a week up north on those. Never won more than a free ticket but I figured I got a dollar's worth of fun out of them anyway. I did better when I switched to the daily numbers. I actually came out ahead on those but I didn't play them for very long because I only started right before I left town. But I won several times, often from fifty to close to a hundred bucks.

Scratch tickets were never my thing. They're messy and you lose so fast. I didn't play them often although I did give them out as gifts on birthdays and holidays. I gave away a couple of hundred dollar winners but never won more than four bucks myself. Nonetheless, since they just started and I haven't played a gambling game since I got here, I bought four tickets the other day. I was only going to buy one of each but the clerk talked me into buying two each instead.

It was good counsel. I won a dollar on the extra ticket. I would have busted otherwise. I turned that winner in and bought an extra a few days ago. I forgot to scratch them until last night. I won three dollars. Guess I'll keep rolling them over until I lose. Who knows, maybe I'll finally get lucky. If I won five grand I could afford to go the beach next week.