Luck

The first time I ever played Lotto 649, I won. True story. I had just started working at a printing place where everybody went in on tickets every week. And, although my naturally frugal aspect was screaming, "Don't do it!" I threw in my $2.00, that first week, in order to feel a part of the group.
The next morning, there was great excitement in the shop. The owners son, a huge deaf-mute guy, was all flushed and sweaty. He motioned at us with his hands: five out of six numbers! We won!

After much checking and re-checking, it was determined that we had indeed won the "2nd" prize; five of six numbers. The jackpot was at least a million, but second place was much less; I think a few thousand dollars. Anyway, after we had divided it seven or eight ways, it came out to perhaps $260. each. At the time, about a weeks pay for me. A nice return on a $2.00 investment.

Imagine winning the lottery the first time you play it. How crazy is that?
It wasn't a lot of money but it was tremendously exciting. For me, it demonstrated two things. One, that lotteries were winnable. By ordinary people, like me and my co-workers. Two, that I was lucky. I couldn't help but think that while my co-workers had been playing the lottery for months and years before I came along, it was only when I joined in, that we won. I have always thought of myself as a lucky person; here now was proof.
For quite a long time after that, lottery tickets were irresistible. I justified buying them by telling myself I had that $260 in credit.

Fast forward twenty-three years or so. (My god, has it been that long?)
Although it embarrasses me to admit it, I still occasionally succumb to the lure of the lottery ticket. I cannot help but imagine winning. So many of my problems could be solved by an influx of cash, that the idea of winning is just too alluring to pass up. Yet I know, somewhere in there, that lotteries are exploitive. That they are institutional money-makers that exist because they make gazillions of dollars on the dashed dreams of poor people. A tax on the gullible and the desperate and the foolish. A tax on me.

I still think of myself as a lucky person but in reality, I almost never win anything. There are people who win door prizes regularly; whose names are pulled from hats; who pick the lucky chair; whose numbers are read out at the end of the evening. I am not one of them.
I only ever really won the lottery that one time. And the more I think about it, the less I think it has to do with me being lucky and the more it has to do with something else; something I'm not sure of and don't know how to name.

But whatever it is, I don't think I'll call it "luck".