Lottery schmottery

Yeah. We bought a few tickets.

All this talk about the Powerball billion dollar lottery thing has left me in various stages of grumpiness. I have a love-hate relationship with the lottery. Truthfully? It’s mostly hate. My wife loves the lottery – specifically, the scratch-off lottery tickets. So, for Special Occasions (birthday, Mother’s Day, anniversaries, etc.), I will splurge and buy her scratch-off tickets. One such time, I bought her the dollar amount in lottery tickets as her birthday; no need to divulge the total here, but I will say this: The earnings in terms of winnings were equal to 0. Then? A few days later, she went to the deli and got a scratch off ticket for herself … and won $50.

And so you can see why I find the lottery to be, at best, a waste of time, and at worst, a rigged system that willfully and methodically preys on those with any inclination toward gambling issues. Except for those select few big winners who you read about, the state always win this game. And even those big winners tend to increase the number of headaches in their lives by winning the “big payoff.”

So all this talk about the Powerball just annoys me. The Facebook posts about what everyone will do if they win the Powerball? They annoy me. The Facebook posts breathlessly telling me when and where they bought their Powerball ticket? Annoying. The Facebook posts detailing all the family birthdays used to select Powerball numbers? Yeah. You get the idea!

How prevalent is this Powerball thing? Even the venerable Sports Pope, my all-time Numbah One favorite Mike Francesa, was talking about it on the FAN today! And! Even our favorite team members are getting into the act and discussing it as well. When I started in on how annoying I found the talk, Tino set me straight and shut me up very quickly: “Coach,’’ he said, “if I win Powerball, you get a TRACK!” A-ha! Finally, putting the lottery winnings to good use …