Mrs. HM Plans, Genius's Friend Laughs

Every holiday, I send my boys a package full of treats. When Genius was in college, Farmer H delivered his stuff in person. It was only a 2-hour drive. The Pony is 9 hours away, so his goes in a flat-rate box, by mail. Now that Genius lives in Kansas City, his also is sent by mail.

I asked Genius if he wanted such a care package for the Easter holiday. I always include enough for Genius's Friend, too. They share an apartment, with Genius commuting to his job every day, and Friend working from home, being sent about the country and western hemisphere several times a month by his employer. They don't really need me sending them treats, since each draws a salary higher than my own when I retired after 28 years! Still, it's a tradition for me to send Genius treats.

Anyhoo... Genius said they didn't really need any treats for Easter, as they'd barely finished the Valentines goodies. However, they wouldn't mind some scratcher tickets. Since I always include some in the package, I was getting off easy with just an envelope of lottery tickets to mail. Friend is like an extra son to Farmer H and me, so of course I include some for him. I do not, however, send him regular tickets every week when I send two in Genius's letter. I think Genius lets him scratch one anyway, though the assignation of any winnings is at Genius's whim.

Because some of the ticket assortment was bigger than a regular envelope, I got a manila envelope for the Genius and Friend tickets. I put the smaller ones in a regular business size envelope, with GENIUS on one, and FRIEND on the other, and tucked the two larger tickets into the flap, without sealing up the business envelopes. Then I shoved them, side by side, down into the manila envelope. At the post office, I told the gal I'd rather my envelope didn't get bent. She said in that case, it would have to be mailed as a package, so I said NO, and paid a dollar-something regular postage to send it. 

The Pony got his regular box, with enclosed scratchers, faster than any package I've ever sent him. I was happy to get a text from The Pony on Monday evening, declaring that he had won $85 on his scratchers! I'm pretty sure he was happier than I. The problem with The Pony's winnings is that he'll have to wait until we make a visit, and I buy those winners from him, or until I deposit money in one of his accounts. He has not specified his preference for payment yet. It's kind of hard to redeem Missouri lottery tickets when you're living smack-dab in the middle of Oklahoma.

Later Monday night, I got a text from Friend. A picture!

That's just the WIN ALL part that I cropped out. He actually sent me the whole ticket.

It was a $10 ticket, and he won $100. Of course I was excited. Giving someone else a winning ticket is almost as good as having a winning ticket for myself! Thus commenced an interesting three-way text exchange.

"Wow! That's a good "winnell," as Farmer H calls it!"

FRIEND: "If only a few of those $5s were a little higher."

"I know. They shouldn't have less than the value of the ticket, I think. But MoLottery didn't consult me!"

FRIEND: "Hahaha. I ended up with $190 overall."

"Great! The Pony had $85, including one $50 winner."

FRIEND: "Awesome! Genius is not so lucky with his haul."

"I notice that he is not revealing his winnings. I'm sure he's stewing, because I obviously picked the best tickets to give you and The Pony."

GENIUS: "MEANWHILE I just won $45."

"That's $45 more than you had before your envelope arrived! I can't use my x-ray vision to pick out equal winners. If I could, I'd keep them for myself. That $45 can buy you a couple drinks to drown your losing sorrows."

GENIUS: "This can pay for our trip to our friends' wedding this weekend."

[Let the record show that Genius and Friend have a whole community of their-college-graduate friends living in Kansas City, and that this wedding is, I assume, in St. Louis or College Town. There was another wedding a few months ago. Genius was supposed to be a best man in one of them.]

"Well, among the three of you, you've won all the money back that was spent on tickets! Can't beat that with a stick! Sorry yours didn't win as much."

GENIUS: "Well, Friend picked the stacks we each got!"

"What??? I tried to separate them by date and purchase point, so everyone would have a fair shot at a fortune. I got them over three days, and laid them out so nobody had all the same day or same kind or same place. That'll learn ya, to let him sort them!"

GENIUS: "No, they were still in separate envelopes, but he picked which one we each got."

"All my fair play planning for naught! I DID have your names on the envelopes, you know. Except for the big tickets that didn't fit. I tried to tuck them in the flap of the named envelopes. Because I'm OCD like that."

GENIUS: "'I DIDN'T SEE THAT!' Friend says, while laughing."

"You're not going to make him spend it all on the wedding trip, are you? I'll be darned if I would even share my own winnings with your dad!"

GENIUS: "He was scratching the ones with MY name!"

"Ohhh... I guess I shouldn't be laughing. You DID buy him drinks and give him $20 when you won your $400 jackpot on CasinoPalooza. Maybe he'll share some of your rightful winnings back with you. Or not."

Heh, heh! I don't know how they resolved it. I think possession is 10/10 of the lottery law! I didn't want to text Genius the next day, in case there were any hard feelings, which would start it up again. I'm pretty sure they came to an agreement. We didn't get a call to bail Genius out of jail or anything. I'm sure he would have been just fine about the envelopes being wrongly assigned, if Genius had won all that money on an envelope designated for Friend! It's not like you can look at a ticket and tell it's a winner.

I have a feeling Genius will keep closer tabs on future tickets. Friend might not be scratching any of those weekly tickets for a while.