Don't Forget to Buy Milk Readers,
The lottery rubs me the wrong way. Always has. My eyes were opened even wider on the subject in a college math class when we learned just how much you can expect to lose when you play a gambling game (most of the time you can expect to lose all the money you put in). There is an exact mathematical formula to figure that out, can you believe that? I would think casinos and state lotteries wouldn't want that info going very far, but I digress.
The logic of the lottery boggles my mind. Let me give you the most optimistic example. If I buy a scratch ticket for $1, and we'll say the odds of me at least breaking even are something like 1,000 to 1, that means there is a 99.9% chance I would have been better off setting that dollar on fire to keep myself warm. Can you imagine that logic working for anything else? Let's go shopping at the gambling grocery store. There's only a .1% chance you get to keep the groceries you pay for, but hey, it just might be your lucky day! If its any difference of opinion, I prefer to shop where there's a 100% chance I get what I pay for.
It gets worse when you listen to lottery commercials. At the end of every commercial it says the lottery benefits public schools and the permanent building fund. You mean to tell me the only way to keep schools and permanent buildings afloat is to take money from a game that forces people to lose almost all their money on a pipe dream?
"Thank you so much for your life savings, now your local schools can have new rain gutters. What would we do without your selfless contribution?"
No wonder the U.S. has such a terrible educational system, it feeds on the crushed hopes of millions of mislead lottery players, who so generously donate to the cause without knowing it.
As if my eyes couldn't be any more open on the subject, my line of work has almost bugged them right out of my head. I see people spend hundreds of dollars on some really fancy paper worth nothing, every day. Sometimes, or should I say at least half the time, its my coworkers doing the spending. I exhaust myself trying to tell them what I've just explained. I had the greatest conversation with one of them after she spent almost $100 on scratch tickets and won back almost $40:
Me: That's a lovely bundle of toilet paper you just bought.
Coworker: If I go for another ticket, you gotta start slapping my hand and telling me no.
Me: I tell you no every time; please no, don't do it, its not worth it, you're going to lose, think of how much you could save, you might as well wipe your bottom with that dollar and flush it than spend it on that, no no no don't no no no please no no no no, and yet you still do. Every time.
Coworker: Well, when I win a million dollars I'm not giving you any!
Me: That's OK, by the time you win that much I'll have been dead for ten years, and so will you.
She mostly gave up for the day at that point, which is a plus I guess. Just don't do it folks; if you care about public schools and the permanent building fund, donate the money on your own terms.
No comments:
Post a Comment