Memories

Chris had a day off earlier this week, and I guess he got bored, so he drove to Georgia to buy a lotto ticket. I'll let you know if it wins.

He told me it wasn't the scratch-off kind and I said that was too bad, because there's something blissful and innocent about scratching off the silver stuff to see if you won anything. And even if you didn't, you still had a good time.

That reminded me of the long afternoons I used to spend at my grandmother's house when I was small. One of my favorite things to do was find one of her Publisher's Clearninghouse Sweepstakes packages and fill the whole thing out. I don't know if she still gets those, but I know she used to get one at least once a week. And I would fill it out with all her information and put all the stickers where they were supposed to go and my absolute favorite thing to do would be to scratch off the little extra prizes. If you won the sweepstakes, you'd also get whatever you won from the scratch-off contests. I think they were the only reason I filled those out so diligently.

I used to call Mommie Ann (my grandmother) all the time and ask her if she'd heard anything yet, as if they called everyone who sent in their packet to tell them whether or not they won. We always agreed to split the winnings down the middle. I remember Mom trying to explain to me what the odds of winning were, but I would just direct her attention to the sea of papers and forms and coupons laid out before me and explain to her that I hoped everyone else thought exactly the same way she did. Then they wouldn't take the trouble to do all this and I'd have a better shot at winning.

Of course, at the time I didn't understand marketing and target audiences and the fact that many of the old people who got these mailouts were bored to tears and living on social security. Still, I suppose it was sound logic for a 7-year-old.