Fantasy By the Numbers

Do you fantasize? No, I don’t mean about any longed-for sexual exploits. I mean, do you fantasize about winning a big lottery and how you would spend your newly attained wealth?

Friday night the Mega Millions jackpot hit $319 million. Saturday night’s Power Ball drawing was a comparatively paltry but still scintillating $125 million. New York State’s Lotto, also picked Saturday night, was an almost insignificant $14 million.

I’m not greedy. I’d be content if I just won Lotto.

When I remember, I usually buy tickets for each game. $1 per drawing. I cashed in my biggest winnings of the year last week, a cool $3 which I immediately reinvested in the next games.

So underconfident am I in winning the grand prize that I am happy when I see the lottery total increase after each drawing. I just assume I don’t have the winning ticket so I’m content to see the money grow. I’m disappointed when someone wins. Not really envious. Okay, a tad envious. But mostly disappointed that my fantasizing must come to an end as I await the next jumbo jackpot.

Weeks can go by without my purchasing a lottery ticket. It didn’t use to be that way. About 20 years ago, my work friends Milton and Stanley shared tickets each week. They’d invest $5 apiece and split any proceeds. I found out about their “retirement” scheme one day and demanded in. They agreed and also let Dominic join the pool. Soon, word spread through the company and before we knew it we had 20 partners. We figured we had a good chance of winning considering the diversity of our group. We had secretaries and salesmen, editors and maintenance crew. Old and young, men and women. Poor and relatively rich. A truly American tableau.

The Indian newsstand operator in the lobby of our building held our tickets. We played the same numbers each week. I was in charge of placing our bets and checking the results. When large lottery prizes were up for grabs in California, Illinois or Florida, states where we had satellite offices, we’d prevail on colleagues there to buy tickets for us. The most we ever won any week was $96, not a very favorable return on our weekly $100 investment.

How frustrating it was to read about workers in a sheet metal shop or some other plant who won and divided up millions. (How interesting that seven New York State workers from the Albany area share the winning ticket for Friday’s $319 million Mega Millions drawing. No one won Power Ball or the NY Lotto.) My partners and I languished in self-pity for about five years before disbanding our pool.

Now that I’m semi-retired I figure I more fully match the profile of many lottery winners who no longer work. Of course, there are a lot more people without jobs now than before, many of whom are victims of the recession, so their human interest stories might be more touching than mine. Still, I can dream on.

As to what I’d do with any bonanza that might come my way, you’ll just have to pray along with me to find out.