Listen To My Lottery Whinings!

Still life with dying aspirations.

Everyone has pet peeves, even Gandhi (he wasn't a big fan of laundry detergents that claimed to get his 'whites white', but didn't). He also become impatient when people mis-spelled his name. Sorry, Mahatma....at least you didn't have to live in a world where lottery tickets were sold in 'convenience' stores.

The term 'convenience store' has become an oxymoron to me, and here's why...

Lately I've been noticing something and it's driving me to distraction, and now to blog. In a nut shell, or do I mean 'nut's hell', I've become a convenience store hostage.

Who's holding you hostage, Ian? Is it the Taliban, al Qaeda, Apu, the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation, or people who think spending a dollar to win back sixty-five cents makes sense?

Good question, alter ego. I'm not sure if I'm pissed off at the government for sharking us, the depraved lunatics who buy lottery tickets (note: Ian has bought them before and will likely sin again), or the convenience stores who are anything but convenient. I'm confused and in the early stages of my Tasmanian spin of rage. I don't know where to direct my anger except into this blog.

It's too bad that Wendy wouldn't allow you to hang the 75 pound punching bag in the condo, eh? It would have been good for moments like this. I kind of liked the idea myself, and it's rare that we agree on anything.

So.....this morning I got up and thought 'wouldn't it be nice to go downstairs to the convenience store and get Wendy her Saturday morning Globe & Mail'. I can be a nice guy, if I have to, I guess. While Wendy was still in bed, I slipped my sockless feet into my boots and I slinked/slunk/slanked quietly out of the condo. I descended from my 17th story aerie to terra firma.  I went through two security doors to the great outdoors and then around the corner to our local 'convenience' store. I entered the store to find it vacant with the exception of one other customer and two employees.

'This is nothin', I think to myself as I grab two two-litre Lacteeze milk cartons and a Globe & Mail. The guy in front of me arrived by bicycle to the 'convenience' store at 7 a.m. on a winter's morning. He had reams of lottery tickets that he was trying to cash in. I waited patiently for the first minute, as we are all entitled to our minute of convenience. After two minutes if became apparent that the cashier didn't know how to deal with the lottery tickets. He was scanning (tickets) and scratching (head) for all he was worth.

At this point I started getting antsy. The milk no longer felt like milk. It was getting heavier and heavier. Clerk #1 was out of his league so he called in clerk #2. The two of them tried frantically to return bike boy's winnings (or losings). Bike boy kept nervously going to the store's door to check that no one stole his bike while he earned his pay. As an aside, I hope he uses his winnings to buy a bike lock, or a life. It's so sad to watch the desperately disheveled collect their pay. It would have been equally sad to have watched my face rainbow from white to rose to scarlet to burgundy to eggplant.

After four or five minutes of standing in line, holding now-leaden bricks of milk and two cords of newspaper, I lost it (albeit silently). I finally waved the white flag. My white flag was a pristine white (Tide!), though next to my jagged eggplant noggin we looked like the flag of Qatar. I put the milk back in the cooler and the Globe back on the counter, then I walked out of the store empty handed....and pissed off.

This is not the first time this has happened. Once, while at a 'convenience' store in Jemseg, I waited five minutes to pay for my gas while someone parlayed their tiny paper scrolls into cash. If they had been buying Children's Tylenol for their wounded toddler then I would have been patient, but somehow waiting for someone to 'check their numbers' causes my blood to boil. Unlike this morning's debacle, I couldn't put my gas back in the ground and take my business elsewhere, as I will do today.

Have you ever been inconvenienced by lottery louts (note: I don't actually blame individuals, for they are weak and stupid)? Is this becoming an epidemic? I think it might be. And what are the odds of things getting better? If I knew the odds, and thought about them seriously, I'd start buying lottery tickets because I'd likely be more successful than trying to change the system.

And finally, for your enlightenment, a few stats from CBC regarding lottery odds....

Pay $2 and your odds of becoming a millionaire are approximately 1 in 14 million.

Your odds are even worse for winning Lotto Max. For $5, you're buying a one in 28,633,528 chance at winning at least $15 million.

Those odds are so long that you are more likely to:

• Be killed in a terrorist attack while travelling <in Qatar??> (1 in 650,000).
• Die — during an average lifetime — of flesh-eating disease (1 in one million).
• Be killed by lightning (1 in 56,439).

You are three times more likely to be killed in a traffic accident driving 16 kilometres to buy your ticket than winning the jackpot.

In 2002, you were about 10 times more likely to die after being bitten by a poisonous snake or lizard than to win a Lotto 6/49 jackpot. Odds for the snakebite death are one in 1,241,661, according to the U.S. National Safety Council.

And all I wanted was my wife's morning paper. Sigh.