Empty Handed

I didn’t win the lottery.

To be honest, I didn’t really expect to win, but the Powerball had reached a ridiculous over 400 million dollars, and someone, at some point, was going to claim a buttload of Benjamins. Why not me? Why not my family? Why not now?

The Saturday after Thanksgiving was the last big Powerball, and my husband said in passing that we ought to get a lottery ticket. We were at the beach for the holiday, and we planned to drive home on a Friday. Our drive would take us by interstate and by small rural 2-lane roads, which meant we had the opportunity to pull over to a truck stop in the middle of nowhere and buy some tickets. It always seems the big winners get their tickets in some heretofore unheard of dead end, so there was precedence for our theory.

I want to throw out a disclaimer here about my life, which is, for all practical purposes, pretty damn cushy. I don’t work full time. We live quite comfortably. Our needs are met, and we have enough to travel and have nice things. I do appreciate what I have. We are very fortunate, and for the most part, I am generous and not materialistic.

At the same token, I would like to be able to do, well, more. My daughters will soon be in college, and how nice would it be to not have to worry about how to pay for their education? What if we had enough extra money to fix up the stuff we have been putting off around the house? What if we could take a trip to Disney World before Christmas? I recognize that I do not need over 400 million dollars. I would have been happy with a cool million, enough to handle that wish list and have a little left over to share with others in a charitable way. A million doesn’t go as far as it used to, you know.

We did go to Disney World before Christmas a few years ago, when at least one of our kids was still considered a child by Disney age guidelines. It was traditionally a slow week, which meant lower hotel rates and a free Disney dining plan. Airline tickets were a tad more affordable because we had more competition in our market. The temperatures were perfect for amusement, and the crowds were small, and we could ride almost every ride more than once without having to Fast Pass or wait in line. We refer to that as the Good Old Days.

Now my kids are considered adults, and there is no off-season, and we don’t have that kind of money to blow on an extra vacation just because it would be fun. I miss the Good Old Days.

So, yeah, I was thinking about college, but really, I wanted to go to Disney World. We stopped at a gas station between two towns, the names of which are irrelevant and instantly forgettable. My husband stayed outside to pump premium gas into my European crossover SUV, while my daughter, S, and I went inside the convenience store to purchase snacks and drinks and five dollars’ worth of lottery tickets.

After grabbing a bag of Bugles, our preferred car snack, and selecting the most disgusting version of Mountain Dew currently on the market, which according to my spouse is the grape-flavored Pitch Black, we walked up to the counter to pay.

“Is that all?” the cashier asked me.

“No, I would also like to buy some lottery tickets,” I told her.

This was the second time in my adult life I have purchased lottery tickets. Any other time we had a wild hair to lose some money, my husband was the one who did the deed. I don’t know the protocol for playing the lottery, as everyone near me was about to discover.

“What do you want?” the cashier said.

“I would like five tickets, please. And make them Powerball,” I said.

"Ten dollars.” she said.

I hesitated a moment, trying to understand how my five tickets turned into a ten dollar purchase. Then I remembered the Powerball part was an extra buck a ticket.

“That’s fine,” I said, and handed her my credit card.

"Numbers?”

“Hmm? Oh, um, I’d like quick pick please.”

She printed out a small receipt and put it on the counter. “Cash,” she said. Her irritation with me was visible.

“Excuse me,” I said.

“Cash, not credit. You can’t charge lottery tickets.”

Did you know you cannot buy lottery tickets with a credit card? I sure didn’t. I took my wallet out of my moderately overpriced name brand handbag and dug around. I found two crumpled dollar bills and some pennies.

“I don’t have ten dollars,” I said. “Is it all right to wait and let my daughter run out to the car? S, go tell your father I need ten dollars to play the lottery.” I spoke those words. The whole thing was really happening. I was, in fact, this person.

A small line formed behind me. The cashier sighed and looked at me. The other cashier quickly handled the purchases of the other people waiting.

S came back inside with some money from my husband. “Here you go,” I told her, handing her the bill. “I’m sorry about that.”

She took my money and pushed the receipt in my direction. I grabbed it and our other stuff and went back to the car with S trailing behind me.

“I don’t think we are going to win, if the purchase experience is any indication,” I told my husband, handing him the slip.

“Everyone knows you can’t buy lottery tickets with cash,” he said.

“Apparently not everyone,” I said to him.

Two days later, the lottery numbers were announced, and out of our five tickets, we won four dollars for hitting the Powerball number. It was the only number out of all the numbers for the five lottery tickets that matched. Our four dollar win meant we only lost six dollars, so I guess that’s some sort of consolation. We planned on using our winnings to buy more lottery tickets. I think that’s how gambling works.

In case you were wondering, one person did win the entire over four hundred million dollars. One. Single. Person. I think it was a woman in Michigan. I don’t know what she is going to do with all that money, but I hope she goes to Disney World before Christmas.

Are We There Yet?

My baby went out of town last week for the first time without me, and you better believe I was upset and worried. It doesn’t matter that my baby is fourteen and needs to learn how to take care of herself. It also doesn’t matter that in four ridiculously short years, she will be going away to college, and I better get used it. Right now, she is fourteen, and she is my baby, and she has not spent more than a night or two away from home, and any of those few and far between nights away from home were always less than a two hour drive. This time, she went to the mecca of children the whole world over, Disney World, and she did it via chartered bus, and each way of the drive was a good eight to ten hours. There was no hopping in the car to come to her rescue, had it come to that.

My baby does have a good head on her shoulders, but no matter how good that head is, it is still fourteen and doesn’t fire from all cylinders. Logic is not a big part of the fourteen year old’s decision making process, but mood and feeling is. And if all moods and feelings are influenced by budding ovaries more so than rational brain function, well, I think you see what I am getting at here. This is a child who can’t be counted on to pack what the majority of us would call a lunch, let alone select an appropriate outfit or remember that shoes are required when going to a place of business.

Allow me to illustrate:

Last weekend before her trip, she decided she wanted to do her homework outside on a blanket and enjoy the lovely spring day. Not five minutes later, she stripped down to her bra and underwear in the back yard, because she decided she would work on her tan at the same time she studied. Never mind that a bra and undies are not the same as a bathing suit, nor that she would never let any of us see her in said bra and panties if she were inside the house, nor that it is the back yard for Christ’s sake, nor the fact that in my family, we do not “work on tans,” seeing as my father died from skin cancer when I was just a few years older than she is now.

I worry because I see how her decision making skills are sort of off-kilter during this adolescent time. My husband, who is a man and therefore doesn’t usually understand the point of worrying, actually agreed with me and got in the on the parenting act as well. Before she left, we took turns reminding her of stranger danger and discussing the value of a dollar before handing her a little less than two hundred dollars.

Whoever planned this school trip neglected to include the cost of meals, but it seems a little irresponsible to me to expect teenagers to manage money for four days. I don’t know what you people with teenaged boys would do in a similar situation, but I guess you would probably worry that you didn’t give your son enough money, seeing as how they can eat their own weight in food every day. Teenage girls, on the other hand, don’t like for anyone to know they have body functions, especially eating. My husband and I both worried that our child would not eat, and therefore not poop, for the four days she was away from our vigilant care.

So we had the “talk.” About how much food costs at Disney. About how three meals and two snacks are not unheard of. About how drinking water is essential in Florida, especially if you ever want to crap again. For her part, our teen did a fair amount of eye rolling and complaining and insisting that we gave her too much money. We explained to her that she has no idea how much food costs since she never pays for her own meals. Also, she doesn’t have a credit card to fall back on. What was in her hand had to last for the whole trip, but that didn’t mean not to eat for fear of running out of money. Seriously, these were our main points. It’s kind of hard to have a rational conversation with someone who thought fifty bucks would be plenty. I bet we both sounded like every adult in a Charlie Brown show to her. Wah wah wah wah wah.

She left on a Wednesday night, midnight to be exact, for an all-night bus ride, to arrive in the morning at Epcot, where they would brush teeth and change clothes in a rest stop. In my yoga class, around the same time she was eating a Nutrigrain bar and wondering where she put her retainer, I cried because the teacher played two of my daughter’s favorite songs in a row. The next day, while volunteering, I received a text, a picture of a chicken and waffle sandwich from the Magic Kingdom. I silently was thankful she ate. By the following day, she was solidly in a routine, and I only heard from her when she was clearly devoid of all food based energy and thus bitching wildly about anything and everything. That’s how I knew she was okay.

She got home last Sunday night. Her hair was lighter from all that Florida sunshine. She  hugged me and handed my husband a wad of cash. We gave her one hundred and sixty dollars for food for four days. She came home with ninety-five. She spent sixty five dollars. Then she showed us the shirt she bought herself at the mall when they stopped for lunch on the way home. It was thirty bucks.

 At least she ate a sandwich one day. The rest of the time she survived off frozen lemonade. She wouldn’t even eat the free breakfast at the hotel because it was too nasty. This child of mine isn’t spoiled at all.

For four days, I got used to not having her around, and she got a taste of freedom that was enough for her to hold my hand for a good hour after she got home. We both know she isn’t ready to be on her own, no matter how cool it sounds to grow up and move out. I also understand what it’s going to be like when she does come back to me. I will have to learn to be happy to see her and hold my anger and judgment at whatever choices she makes with which I don’t agree, especially if I want her to come back.

Parenthood is always a dance, and you are the last one to learn the steps. Also, one can’t survive on less than ten dollars a day at Disney. I don’t care what she says.