We Won the Lottery!

I’m not much of a gambler. I really don’t like the idea of handing my hard-earned money over to a slot machine and watching it disappear in .015 seconds. Scratch tickets and buying into the lottery aren’t that fun for me either. I don’t mind playing Blackjack, though, because it takes a bit longer for my money to disappear. 

My husband is exactly the opposite. He will tell you that I just have the wrong attitude, and I most certainly do. I like exchanging money for ‘things’ over the highs and lows of a slot machine sooo much better, which is crazy because he collects things like nobody’s business - shirts, jeans, underwear, socks, caps, and everything that “you never know, we might need it someday.” But that’s a whole other story.  

Not long ago, we were looking at a ticket he bought from our local gas station, and for whatever reason - lack of sleep, finally a decent weather day, knowing golf season is upon us, whatever - we were certain he had won. 

Of course, we won!

We didn’t even question it, we just let our minds run with what we were going to do with all that money. He was finally going to have the pickup of his dreams, we could buy a second home in a warmer climate, I was going to write a book, he was planning to retire in October but could go ahead and do it right away, and I was also excited that we’d be able to hire someone to finish the items still on our home remodel list. 

“Finish it? We could sell it!”

My heart plummeted. 

I could never sell our house. Our house is my favorite place to be. 

I remember kids following trails of candy to their Easter buckets, the time an actual bird was trapped in the basement and one of the kids and I were trying to get it out as it dove at our heads, hunkering down on a snow day, watching lightning storms from our big picture window, painting bedrooms in team colors or ceiling fans with hand drawn hearts with the kids, tearing apart our old ugly bathroom wall and finding hundreds of razor blades from a previous owner, kid birthday parties in the backyard, telling the kids they were going to get in big trouble if they touched the vertical blinds, only to let the grandkids have free reign with everything including the new blinds, peeling a small section of the old wallpaper off a wall in the kitchen while my husband was at golf league, which led to the remodel and huge improvement of our kitchen.  

If we didn’t have to worry about money, we’d sell our house? No way. 

Perhaps we should look closer

We started looking closer at the lottery ticket. One of us got online and one got on the phone to check the numbers. 

I could hardly focus with the future of our house hanging in the balance. 

We finally realized it had been a mistake. We weren’t going to be lottery winners, and we felt a bit ridiculous that we’d gotten so carried away. We could practically see the money in our bank account, and it had allowed us to talk about what we’d do, unlike any other conversation, because it had seemed real to us. 

The sadness I was feeling about the house was gone in an instant. I also realized that I could continue writing the book I had already started; I’d just have to make time for it. We could start saving for his dream pickup. We would continue taking vacations in warmer climates, rather than buying a house that would sit empty part of the year. He would still get to retire in October, which wasn’t that far away. 

As my husband headed out the door to go back to a job he’s had for 44 years, I couldn’t help but feel like we’d already won the lottery. We sure didn’t need a piece of paper to tell us we are already big winners in this crazy game of life.