Mrs. HM Can't Help Herself

No, this is not the story of how I need my boys to pull my oxygen tank through the casino, and clip my toenails. I can help myself well enough to take care of the activities of daily living. What I CAN'T help myself do is stop winning on scratch-off tickets.

On Saturday, it happened again.

I guess you could say it's a matter of SSDT. No. That's not a misspelling of the SSDD the characters in Stephen King's IT used to say all the time. In my case, the SSDT stands for Same Stuff, Different Ticket. Yes. I had another $100 winner. This was on a $10 ticket.

Do you think I picked up my phone to send a picture of it to my sister the ex-mayor's wife? I did NOT! Instead, I sent a picture to the #1 Son, and to The Pony. So they can rest assured that I am not squandering their future inheritance (hopefully WAY in the future), but instead I'm keeping myself in play money. Which is not to say I'm turning an overall profit. Wouldn't THAT be nice! No, I'm getting enough wins to continue playing comfortably. Can't possibly win big if you don't play, you know!

Anyhoo...Saturday evening I was sitting on the front porch pew snacking the dogs, and I sent Sis a text congratulating the ex-mayor on his recent election victory in a different office. Sis returned the ex-mayor's thanks, and furthermore professed that if I wanted to send him a winning lottery ticket, she was sure he would accept it.

SHE BROUGHT IT UP!

Of course I had to fire off that picture to her. But with my cell phone reception, it was more like trying to light a smoldering pile of wet leaves using a shoestring and a drinking straw to spin a popsicle stick on sodden cardboard, and send that picture piecemeal by smoke signal.

Anyhoo...you can imagine Sis's great joy to see that my winning streak continues. I think her exact words were: "The ex-mayor says this winning all the time is beginning to be a little fishy."

Apparently, Sis shares the news of my good fortune with her daughter, Niecey. I'm sure she would never make up a name for me and poke fun at me on a supersecret blog.

Sunday afternoon, I got a call on my cell phone.

"Aunt Hillbilly Mom?"

"Yes."

"It's Niecy."

"So my screen tells me."

"Mom has been telling me about how you win on these lottery tickets. So I decided that once a week, I'm going to buy one. Like the one you won a thousand dollars on. I got one last week, and didn't win anything. Today, I got another one, and I scratched it off, and 10 numbers matched the winning numbers! I uncovered the amounts, and they were all five dollars. I won $50 on my $10 ticket!"

I was thrilled for Niecey. She went on that she had gone back inside to cash it in, and had put away $40, and bought one more ticket. Which didn't win. She was asking me if I would have done that. Hmm...probably not. Though when I used to win $1000 when the boys were younger, and I let them scratch, all three of those wins were next to a ticket with a minimum win. I don't buy back-to-back tickets now, so I don't know if they are still like that. I see plenty of people scratch them at the counter, and get another one right then. So they must have had some success like that.

Anyhoo...it looks like our luck has been passed to the next generation.
Sis must be a carrier.