I do play. For the price of $1.00, I can dream. Now twenty years ago, California started a scratcher game. I'd just finished a very messy, painful divorce.
My ex and her boyfriend played me like a fish. At the end, she got the house and one of our two boys. My first "weekend" visit, she'd invited one of his friends to spend the weekend with him (on MY time). I could see the handwriting on the wall.
A couple of months later, (a Friday which was my weekend with the little guy) I got home from work to find a message on my answering machine from my lawyer. The message was "come on down", my house had sold and he had a check for me.
Naturally I got excited, I was going to have my son for the weekend, and money to entertain him and his brother. So I rushed to the lawyer's office and I received a check for $16.94.... She got all the rest of the sale.
I went and picked my son up for my "weekend", and as he got into the car said "daddy, I want to come home and live with you and my brother forever". Well, you could hear my heartstrings snapping and I said okay, I'll save up enough money to finish paying the lawyer off, and save some more to do it. He said Okay dad.
The very next day, while shopping with my little boy, I bought 5 scratcher tickets. The Good Lord was looking out for my sons and I that day, and one of the Lottery scratcher tickets paid $25,000.
I called the lawyer's office and left a message on his machine, "start the process, I've got the money".
A month later I had custody of both my sons. This was in the People's Democratic Republic of Calif. where the communists rule and the courts seem to hate fathers.
So yeah, I still buy Lotto tickets (no scratcher anymore) just so I can dream.
That is quite a story. I hope there was a little prayer of thank you.