History Repeats

As my second-best old ex-teaching buddy Karen used to chant sing-songily... "When will she EVER learn?" That was on weekends when we played poker with fellow teacher Jim, and they soundly tromped my rumpus every time, raking in the pile of pretzel sticks that we gambled with, while chomping on Rold Gold Pretzel Rods like they were cigars. That's what teachers did for recreation, you know.

Anyhoo, after my fright at almost losing (technically, I DID lose it, to no winners) $20 in the left machine at 10Box on Saturday... I gave that lottery machine another try on Sunday. Mrs. HM, always the forgiver. This time, I only put in $5. I wanted a Monopoly ticket. Can you believe that darn machine did the same thing again??? Took my money. Showed me the ticket I poked, so I could make a selection. Then just did nothing. No sound. Kept showing that Monopoly ticket on the screen.

I waited. And waited. Waited some more. THEN IT TORE OFF MY TICKET AND DROPPED IT IN THE TRAY! That was a relief. Still, it was a loser.

I went back in 10Box on Monday, with a fistful of draw tickets to redeem. I bought them from The Pony's stack of winners, since The Pony wanted the cash for a casino trip with his cousin, Niecy. My mind was made up that I would NOT patronize the wonky left-side lottery machine. As luck would have it, a man was there in front of it anyway.

I went to the right-side machine and started scanning four draw tickets that added up to $11, and also a $5 and $10 winner. The Man kept turning around, looking perturbed. Then a supervisor, the one who always brings a cart over to T-Hoe for me when she's outside, came out of the back room with the key. She told him it would be a minute.

As they were waiting, she nodded her head at me. "Look at her. She's like: 'No problem over here.'"

"I know! The same thing happened to me at that machine two days ago. It tried to do it again yesterday. So I'm NOT going to try it for a while!"

The Man said, "So you're getting all the winners out of that one!"

"More like I'm clearing out the losers so you can win, heh, heh!"

The supervisor was just getting that left machine working as I left. I fanned out my selections. "Here's what I got. Just in case you don't want to buy the same thing!" Another guy was waiting behind me to use the right-side machine. He got a look at my tickets, too. 

Mrs. HM. So selfless. Always trying to help other gamblers in the way she would like to be helped.