Glommers Gonna Glom

Seems like only yesterday (that's 'cause it WAS) that Mrs. HM was bragging about sharing her good luck streak with the Blogosphere.

Uh huh. Nobody enjoys streaking more than Mrs. HM. Now don't go all gutter-minded retro, picturing the streaking fad so popular back when The Future Mrs. Hillbilly Mom was in high school. No siree, Bob! It wasn't TFMHM (The Future Mrs. Hillbilly Mom) who had her picture in the yearbook, caught in the main hallway on the first floor, right outside the principal's office, with no clothes and only a large industrial gray plastic trash can to cover her privates! Nope! That was BMOC Fred J. Who may or may not have had on a skimpy pair of those running shorts with the colored piping.

No. We're talking about a streak of winning $100 lottery tickets. The ones which I used to send a picture of to my sister the ex-mayor's wife, until she sent me a text asking why I kept sending her pictures of my $100 winners. And not just in a curious way. So I stopped. Okay. So the reason might have been that I had quit winning $100 on my scratcher tickets. Almost as if Sis had put the kibosh on my lucky streak.

Last week, Sis asked me on the phone why she never got those winning pictures any more. After a short discussion, in which I told her that she was bad ju-ju for my lucky streak, Sis laughed and said she hadn't meant anything by that comment, and that she didn't care if I sent the pictures. Well! As luck (MY GOOD LUCK STREAK) would have it, the very next day is when I hit that $100 winner that I showed yesterday, and the two subsequent $100 winners that same week. It was as if The Curse of the Ex-Mayor's Wife had been lifted! You can bet I sent her pictures of my winners. It's her own fault. She's a regular Sister Frankenstein, creating this winner-texting monster.

Anyhoo...you might also recall that Farmer H had a good win on tickets I got him on our trip to Genius's graduation. I accused him of stealing my luck.

FORESHADOWING ALERT!!!

Since Monday was Farmer H's birthday, I took one of the scratcher tickets I'd bought that day, and tucked it into his birthday card. He got other presents. Not even a $3 pink change purse and a box of Sno-Caps. Collectible presents like an old beer bottle and a unique can that even still has the beer in it, and some wood chips from a Jim Beam whiskey barrel. Stuff he likes. Stuff he already has themed sheds or a BARn dedicated for.

Anyhoo...The Pony and I were running around, renewing his driver's license, visiting the bank, looking for Christmas Eve party prizes, picking up Chinese for lunch, and stopping at various convenience stores to amass some of the scratchers that I include as gifts for HOS and The Veteran and Sis's families. You don't want to get them all at the same place off the same roll on the same day. No. You need a variety.

Of course I had several tickets coming my own way, having cashed in some ongoing winners. I took the stack of tickets, pulled out a few that caught my fancy, and put the others in a envelope to apportion on Friday when I get the gifts ready. I looked at my tickets, and thought, "I should give one of these to Farmer H for his birthday. Hmm...which one? Which kind does he ask for when I buy him one? Okay. I have two of those. OH LOOK! That ticket number is 18. That's his birthdate! I'm giving that one to Farmer H."

You know what happened, right?

Uh huh. Farmer H was scratching his ticket, bemoaning that fact that he never wins, when he said, "What's that? I have a winnell." The Pony and I, sitting side by side on the short couch, gave each other the side-eye.

"You got a WHAT?"

"What do you need to win on this?"

"Match the symbols, or get a candy cane, or a snowman." The Pony has only scratched one of these, and even he remembers.

"Oh. I thought it was a Santa head."

"No. Not on this one."

"I think maybe I got a snowman."

"Probably a gingerbread man. They do that so you think you win."

"Yeah. And it doesn't have an amount under it. It just says winnell."

"What in the world is--YOU HAVE A WIN ALL!"

"Huh?"

"You won all the prizes, Dad."

"I did?"

"Here. I'll help. Scratch them off."

Yes. I had that ticket right in my hand. My good luck streak still going strong. Had that ticket right in my stack of personal tickets, ready to scratch, when I decided to give it to Farmer H.

I don't really begrudge him a $100 win on his birthday. Just so long as he realizes he has glommed onto my luck, and is now winning like nobody's business.