Returning A FAVEr

I have been so preoccupied with rescuing and losing our newest dog Lucky (still no sign, sadly) that I have not shared some news from the world of Hillmomba lottery.

You may recall that I have a favorite clerk at the Gas Station Chicken Store. I seem to get more winners from her than from anybody else in any other store. Of course, I DO go there every day, and FAVE works four out of seven of those days when I'm there. Maybe she is just luckier to me because I get the majority of my tickets from her. Still, she is congenial and polite. When I have a good four days, I give her a little something the next time I see her.

Last week, I won $150 there in one day! I had two $50 winners on $5 tickets, and the other tickets added up to another $50. I bought a couple of crossword tickets elswhere, especially to give her. She likes the crosswords. I gave her two of the $5 kind, and two of the $3 kind, in an envelope with her name on it. I don't want her to get in trouble, you know. I didn't buy the tickets there, and a sealed envelope is her private property that nobody should be opening.

Anyhoo... whenever I do this, I go by my own unwritten rule. If I'm buying a crossword for FAVE, it's always the second ticket I buy. For example, if I'm getting myself a crossword or two at Casey's, or out of a machine, the second crossword is designated for FAVE. I set it aside from mine. That way I don't debate on which number of the ticket I would rather play, or which one "feels" luckier to me. Nope. The second one is for FAVE. I feel especially guilty if my adjacent ticket wins something, because then I think FAVE has less of a chance to win. But that's my rule. The second is for FAVE.

I gave her the envelope on Thursday. When I stopped for my tickets on Friday, FAVE said, "I couldn't wait to tell you! I won $100 on one of my crosswords. I even showed my grandma! It came at just the right time, too! I was out of money!"

That was great news for me. I was not a bit jealous that FAVE had a good winner. That's what I hope for when I give people tickets. She was meant to win it, not me. Second-ticket rule!

The next day, I got a $100 winner. Not on a crossword, and not from FAVE. It was a new $5 Christmas ticket out of the machine at Save A Lot. I figure it was karma and Even Steven in cahoots. What goes around comes around...