Wednesday, October 27, 2010

DAMN, DAMN...DAMN!!!

That was my mantra throughout the course of the night as I kept muttering that to myself (and to anyone else who would listen).  Why was I so pissed off?  Well, a boneheaded move (or non-move) on my end did me in.  Let me explain. 

We all have our "vices", don't we?  Let's put it out there.  Some folks like smoking.  Others like the drink.  And still there are others who resort to drugs, shopping, sex, etc as the one thing that they must have or do to make the world go round.  My vice, sad to say, is playing the lottery.  I have a certain set of numbers that I like to play each day and I play them pretty much every day.  Sure, I lose more than I win, just like everyone else.  But in the overall scheme of things, I tend to do okay.

So, last night before work, I go over to the bodega spot and put in my numbers for the night.  While I'm there, I usually find myself getting into conversations, either with the owner or some of the patrons of the store.  We bullshit about various things and often times the conversations are pure forms of entertainment within itself. 
After playing my numbers for the night, I head back to the bar to settle in for a night of work.

An hour into my shift, I casually check my numbers and realize that one of my numbers hit... in exact order! A four-digit number in exact order gets you $5,000 on a $1 play.  So of course, I see this and I immediately go into a happy dance!  I grab a female patron and give her a twirl on the floor (much to her surprise), and I tap dance my way outside the bar to check my numbers to make sure I wasn't seeing things.  Big Daddy's about to take that long-overdue vacation!

The celebration was short-lived, however, as yours truly dug into his pockets to retrieve his numbers, only to find that he FORGOT to play the number!  This particular number, 7-2-1-3, was a new number that I had begun playing, since it was part of my new phone number;  So there had been a few times where I had forgotten to play it.  But it never came in, so I didn't really worry about it.  Of course, as soon as that happens, the number comes out.  Happy dance all of a sudden became the perp walk back into the bar (ala the Green Mile).  At that moment, happy thoughts of a nice vacation went right out the window and I found myself in a funk for pretty much the rest of the night. 

At the end of the day, I shouldn't get too upset over losing something I never had.  But still...

Damn, damn...DAMN!!!


That's It.  That's All I Got.