Sign of the Times

Sign of the Times

A handful of brightly colored, crushed lottery tickets on the wet parking lot pavement caught my eye yesterday. Colorful dreams purchased with hard-earned money turned into litter. I didn’t win, it’s someone else’s problem now. Almost everything about the lottery is an illusion, except the trash.
A week or two ago while waiting to pay for my morning coffee, the young lady ahead of me was buying lottery tickets. She was picking and choosing which games to play, “I’ll take two $500 A Week for Life games and one Loose Change, give me a Lucky Cash X10, two Cashtastic’s, four Monopoly’s, three In the Money’s, no, make that two In the Money’s and two Set for Life games.”
My coffee was getting cold while I waited to pay. I watched in complete awe at how she rattled off the names of the games, so swift so confident. It was like a mother at the deli counter ordering the week’s supply of cold cuts for her family. “ Nick, she asked, are there any new games I don’t know about? “Did I for get the Triple Diamonds, let me get two Triple Diamonds also Nick.”
She paid and turned towards the door saying,” see you tomorrow Nick.” “Yes, and good luck” was his reply. He turned to me and scanned my 16 ounces of morning starter fluid, “ is that all Steve," he asked? I handed him two bucks, and asked if he would toss the empty cup for me.