RecAddiction

The Lottery…the dream of the destitute. I hate the lottery. It’s something people without any chance of ever making anything of themselves can hang onto, once all their hopes and dreams of a better life have washed away like dirty water down the drain. “We’ve got as much chance of winning it as anyone else!” No you don’t. You don’t know people that win the lottery, you read about them in a newspaper. Its usually some half wit from rural somethingshire, that collects models trains on the weekend and still lines with “Ma”. “It won’t change me.” Yeah, like fuck it won’t. The first thing you’re doing is shipping dear old Ma of to the local pre-cemetery community, buying a Ferrari and finding the most expensive gold digger in your village your new found wealth can afford. Hey, perhaps you’ll have enough cash to finally bury those public exposure incidences from your past? A man can only dream.

And can someone explain to me why, when the jackpot hits £100 million, everyone decides they’ll get involved? Whats the matter, the £3 million on offer last week wasn’t enough for your £1 fucking investment? “Only £3 million you say? Leave it to it’s a roll over, I don’t get out of bed for less than 5.”

But my fundamental issue with this obserd national pass time is what it does to the work place. You always get the same fucking people asking the same fucking question, “What would you do if you won?”. This conversation can go on for what seems like a lifetime. “Well I’d buy my mum and dad a house, then I’d buy a house for myself, and I’d give my sister enough money to get her eyes sorted out, and then I’d give money t o charity, but not one of the horrible ones, one like that Comic Relief, with all the funny people on it…”. How fucking bored of your own life are you that this is something you’ve actually spent time thinking about?!? You’ve spent time, your own time, time that have been spent on anything else, working out what you’d do if you won a 120,000,000 / 1 bet! Why don’t you spend the next hour working out what you’re going to do when you find out you’re the long lost child of royalty, or what you’re going to do when you stumble across that Picasso in your attic, because guess what? There’s more chance of BOTH of those happening to you than winning the lottery!

And at the route of all this tension and anger, is one shitty little fact. Its that nagging voice at the back of your mind that says you damn well know that if you’re the only one in your office not to play, that’ll be the week your office wins the big one. And the fear of that happening, far outweighs any desire you have to be a millionaire, or have a big house or flash car. It’s that fear that come Monday, you’ll be only one your office, alone, sitting at your desk, tears dripping into your nasty little plastic cup of crappy office coffee as your FORMER colleagues sip champaign, high fiving over that massive cheque they always seem to roll out for lottery winners.

That’s why I hate the lottery, but why I’ll keep playing as long as everyone else does.