Blotto Lotto

It is with great sadness that I acknowledge that I did not win the lottery last night.

Like millions of others, the thought of $350,000,000+ made me lose my mind a little bit. It's a staggering sum of money. If you were the sort of person who believed that inflation was a myth, you could give each person in the United States one million dollars.

And after you threw away your money like that, you could keep going and give each and every person in, say, Colombia or Sudan their own million dollar check. I would guess that upon which country you choose to bestow your largess depends entirely on your drug of choice.*

I have never before bought a lottery ticket, believing it a waste of money. But when I heard the sum, I stepped away from the casino table and thought to myself, why not?

So I went to my local sketchy gas station and plunked down a ten dollar bill and willed myself to visualize the winning numbers. Unfortunately, I have spent 26 years consuming popular culture and am thus found wanting in the area of imagination.

I briefly considered picking the numbers from Lost that Hurley used to win the lottery. 4,8,15,16,23,42. I thought to myself, "The odds that my numbers get picked are awful. The odds that the Lost numbers get picked are awful. Two awfuls always cancel each other out. Ergo, I win. QED."

But right as I was going to actualize my flawless logic, reality hit me smack in the face. Did I really think I was the only idiot in the world who would choose the Lost numbers? Of course not. All across America, I pictured millions of people picking those numbers and then going to a fried chicken joint. Those people would all win and then we would have to split the pot. And whoever said sharing was caring was full of crap.

So, unless I wanted to end up with pennies, I had to choose new numbers. This I did, and I picked my numbers and went home.

Then, when 11:24 came, I was ready. I had my tickets in my hand. I tuned the TV to the right channel and stood there, making sure to angle myself in such a way that when I won and fainted, I would fall onto my coffee table, destroying it but at the same time creating an awesome anecdote that I could use at the press conference the following morning.

Of course you know what happened next.

I did not win. Two other people did. And yes, tons of people used the Lost numbers, but wouldn't you know it, not that many numbers matched so that each one of those people still won $150. On a $1 ticket.

So I sat down and I wept and I said goodbye to my condos in Boston and NYC and the beach houses in Santa Barbara and Lake Cuomo and the Mayan Rivera and the dozen bespoke suits from Savile Row and the 30 Hermes ties and the collection of Bruno Magli shoes and the 30-year old bottles of Scotch and the sports cars and the 80'' TV and the private jet and the penthouses at the Four Seasons and the American Express Centurion card and the happiness that only hundreds of millions of dollars can buy.

Sigh.

"It isn't fair, it isn't right," Mrs. Hutchinson screamed, and then they were upon her.

*I was told there would be no math.