Humor Monday: This Is My Week To Win The Lotto

I was so sure I would win the lottery this weekend, I called the Lotto Office to ask for an advance.

Have you any idea how rude those Lotto people can be?

Anyway, think about it.

This weekend some thirty million people will be slapping a dollar down on the counter of the Fuel & Go, asking for a chance to become a zillionaire. Do you know what that means?

It means there are twenty-nine million, nine-hundred ninety-nine thousand, nine-hundred ninety-nine chumps in the world, because I'm going to win.

Me? I understand odds. What I cannot understand is other people and odds. The chance of winning this weekend is thirty million to one - the same of odds of being hit by lightning - six times. Now ask yourself, how many of those thirty million people standing in line at the Fuel & Go clutching a dollar in hope of winning, are carrying a lightning rod against the contingency of losing nature's lotto?

I will bet not a single one of them.

What does this say about ourselves? It says humans are an optimistic species but it also says Americans are perhaps the most optimistic of sub-species. Americans love to envision success. We love to talk about sudden unearned wealth. If you don't believe me, try this little experiment. Sit in any bar and ask the guy on the next stool "What would you do if you won the lotto?" In an instant the whole establishment will join the conversation:

"I'd buy a house so big it would have "Climate Control" instead of a thermostat".

"I'd get a SUV with a fuel tank called Kuwait."

"I'd go on an all beer diet."

"I'd send sympathy cards to my co-workers - every day."

"I'd buy a big house for each of my kids - on the other side of the planet"

"I would buy my ex a one-way space tourist ticket"

See how that works? Now swivel your stool in the other direction and ask your bar-mate what he would do if he got hit by lightning.

Don't be surprised if he says "Probably the same thing you'll do when I pop you in the nose."

See, bad luck doesn't have the same zing as good luck. Why is that? Why in a world threatened by global warming, nuclear destruction, or Laura Bush running for president in 2012, would Americans remain a mostly optimistic people?

I guess the reason is simple, most of us got here because our ancestors were optimistic. This might explain why the French pout so much or the Germans are so full of angst. It is the result of self-selection. The people who carried the optimist gene left while the sour-pusses stayed home.

I know this is not scientific, but I have seen people in France and Germany carry umbrellas on a sunny day. You would never see that in America. You don't even see Americans carrying umbrellas in the rain.

It is what defines us. We are a crazily optimistic people who will buy a lotto ticket when the odds are thirty million to one, but will not carry an umbrella when there is a seventy percent chance of rain.

© Greg Schiller, 2008
Author: Greg Schiller