LJ Idol Survivor: Final Immunity Challenge, Day 2

[flipflop_diva]

My husband says we’re going to win the lottery.

Actually, he tells me this twice a week — Tuesdays and Fridays — and with supreme confidence each time.

“We’re going to be millionaires in the morning!” he says as he kisses me goodnight. (The drawings are already done by then, but he likes to check the numbers in the morning. Somehow, he says that’s luckier.)

Of course, he has told me this approximately 500 times since we’ve been married, and we have yet to win hundreds, let alone millions, but this does not deter him in the least.

Apparently, it will happen on Tuesday. This time for real.

--

I’m not a gambler. At all. My idea of a fun trip to Vegas is with a twenty-dollar bill in my wallet, all ready to spend. Sometimes, if I’m feeling daring, I’ve gone with forty dollars.

I like the slot machines. One quarter at a time for twenty dollars? That’s a lot of enjoyment right there. Sure, the machines want you to double and triple those bets, but that’s just crazy talk. There’s a reason I stay away from dollar machines.

I was super excited when I discovered penny slots. That’s one hundred games for a dollar! Rejoice!

Nickel slots are probably the best. A lot of games in one twenty-dollar bill, but not so many that I get super bored.

Every once in a while I make a dollar or two. Once I came home ten dollars richer. It was a proud moment.

My husband, on the other hand, could spend all day gambling. He takes after his mother and his aunts. Most of his family live south of us, in Laredo, Texas. There are a few casinos there they lose a lot of money at. When David goes to visit, he joins them on those adventures.

He’s not a hardcore gambler, or what most people would consider hardcore. He spends a hundred or two hundred. Which to me is insane, but again, I am not a gambler. And there are a lot of other things I could do with that money.

Most of the time he comes home with at least some of it left. Sometimes more than he started with. Sometimes with none of it.

I’m not sure when he started buying lottery tickets. He was doing it before we met. But it’s always the same — he spends $50 for one ticket each for ten games to last five weeks. A couple times he hasn’t been paying attention to the dates and gone a couple lotto draws without having a ticket. Those have been very upsetting moments to him when he realizes.

He always plays the same numbers. He changed them when we got married to include me, and then he added in a thirteen for our daughter (her birthdate) once she was born, but apart from that, they are always the same.

Sometimes, we match the bonus number and win five dollars. A couple times we’ve gotten two numbers and won maybe ten dollars.

Still waiting on those millions he keeps promising me.

-

In addition to playing the lottery, David likes to fantasize about life once we win the lottery. He probably actually enjoys this part the most.

We’ve decided we aren’t going to be selfish millionaires, and we will of course give money to family and friends and pay college tuition for the kids in our lives. We’ll probably donate some to charity, too, depending how much we’d win.

(The other week, though, after someone who was not us won the big jackpot and it dropped back to about 8 million for the cash option, David remarked that we could only give away a million or we wouldn’t have enough to live on. Apparently, he’s getting stingy now in these fantasies, or inflation is about to go up an awful lot.)

We also discuss how, the first thing we’ll do, is find someone to help us manage our newfound riches. My dad always said if you win the lottery to keep that a secret from whoever you hire until the papers are signed. That way you’ll know you can trust them. So we’ll do that.

Then, of course, we’ll pay off all our debt — the mortgage, the car, the credit card bills. We’ll put money aside for college for the kids, and of course, there’s the money we’ll give away.

We also discuss about where we should live. We just bought our house not even two years ago yet, and it’s plenty big enough for all of us. We could put in a pool, and David really wants solar panels. But maybe we should move? Find the best school district for the kids. Buy a house overlooking the lake. But then Ellie would have to leave her friends at daycare.

These are the rich people problems we like to discuss.

We also discuss how much notice to give at work, and what we would do with all our extra time we’d suddenly have. We can’t just sit at home and watch TV all day! David usually has a different idea every time we talk about it — sometimes he’s going to own and operate a food truck or a fast-food franchise. Once, he was just going to start a YouTube channel focused on traveling on a budget. Other times, he wanted to start a shelter for dogs.

It’s good to have dreams.

Of course, if we’re multi-millionaires, we have to have some indulgences. Put in the pool. David wants a Tesla. Maybe buy some vacation homes in some cool places, like Hawaii or next to Disney World. Take all our friends on vacation. Travel the world.

We usually discuss these plans when we take our pre-dinner walks. Sometimes, David likes to argue if he doesn’t think our imaginary money is making us enough in interest because we spent too much.

Usually, by the time our walk is over, we’ve reached a compromise.

But somehow, every time I wake up on a Wednesday or Saturday morning, we are inexplicably still not millionaires. Nor even close.

It’s okay, though. David says it’s going to happen this next time. So why shouldn’t I believe him?





Nonfiction. If you'd like a cut of our imaginary earnings, let me know! Sometimes, David feels super generous and really ups the amount we can give away :)




Thank you for reading! This was written for therealljidol: Survivor Idol! We're at the final immunity challenge now, so there's no voting. We just write an entry every day until only one person is left standing.

That said, if you want to read the entries, you can find them all here.

Comments

[murielle]

You pay for the ticket to dream until the next draw. Sometimes I don't mind paying to do something that is free, sometimes I do. Over the past twelve months or so, I haven't been paying to dream because I haven't been able to get out for tickets, and I'm sure the ones that are burning leather in my purse have expired. But even though dreaming is free, sometimes it's nice to invest a little in those dreams.

Best of luck on this week's lottery, hon!

*Hugs*

[halfshellvenus]

I'm not a gambler either, nor is most of my family!

My brother's idea of gambling used to be to take that 20 dollars and convert it to chips to take to the blackjack table (where the odds for the house are the lowest). Once the $20 was gone, he was done. But I think there's more potential _fun_ to be had with your nickel slots idea. :D

Apparently, he’s getting stingy now in these fantasies, or inflation is about to go up an awful lot.
Or he knows how it goes for most people, despite their best intentions. ;)

HalfshellHusband used to buy us a lottery ticket a week at the grocery store. I had a small metal tin full of high-quality 1$ bills that any machine would happily eat instead of spitting back out at you. But he got out of the habit many many years ago, and while we never had bigs hopes, hey-- it was only $52 a year!

That can is still sitting on his dresser... maybe now's the time, as your husband might say? :D

[alycewilson]

How fun to dream of imaginary riches! Of course, your husband is one up on me, because he's actually playing.

[adoptedwriter]

Been there! We have a group lotto thing going at work. It’s not happened in 8 years... Still it’s fun to hope and dream. This captures that notion very well.

[gunwithoutmusic]

I play the scratch-offs from time to time; once I won $50 bucks on a ten-dollar ticket, and I was over the moon! My husband doesn't care for me doing that, because he remembers the time when we were playing a mobile game that was, for all intents and purposes, gambling, and both of us regularly sank hundreds of dollars into it at a time. Gambling can be very addictive!

Scratch-offs don't feel like gambling, though, or at least it's easier to just get one and be done with it (I wait until I'm already in the car to scratch it, and I'll pick up my winnings the next time I'm in the store, so I don't find myself in the position of winning something and immediately going back to the lotto machine). I have the same fantasies about what I would do as a millionaire. Pay off my debt, buy a new car, buy a new but still modest house, quit my job and get into writing full-time. I can see us maybe going overboard if we actually did win big, though, so maybe it's good that I haven't. It's still fun to think about, though. :)

[bsgsix]

Hi, friend! Sorry for not commenting much - I'm slowly working my way back. Congrats on getting to the Top 3! I'm so happy for you, and I miss writing with you. <3

This is such a relatable entry. I always play the "what if?" lottery game, too, even though we only buy tickets every once in a while. Back in 2015, the lottery was up to 1.2 billion (that was INSANE) and I think we bought $20 in tickets then; otherwise, we may buy 4-5 tickets a year, plus a scratcher every so often. But the "what if?" rich people problems come up when we talk about it, and I've always said I never want to win more than $10 mil. I'd be afraid of it; it's too much money and power. Ten mil, taxes aside, can pay off the house, pay for James to go to college, pay for my health needs, and pay off our debts. Then, we can bank some for retirement, pay regular bills off the interest, and donate the rest. I'd want to give to friends and family, and to some charities, but I don't want to hold on to what I don't NEED. I just want to live longer, here by the water, and make sure James can go to college and live the best, healthiest life possible. Everything else is just - stuff. Life, and affording to live, is all I ask for.

This is very fun and absolutely relatable, and I'm glad you wrote it. I'm glad you're still here, writing. Keep at it. You have so much talent! <3

[murielle]

Forgive me for butting it, but *Hugggggggggsssss*!

I missed you so much!

[bsgsix]

Hi! *all the hugs* I'm so very glad to see/hear from you, and congrats on making it to the Top 4! I was so happy to hear about that!

I'm not online here very often, but I'm hanging in and trying to be ready for a Jury vote when the time comes. I'll also try to post something to update everyone about what's been going on with me. I'm not well, and some conditions did get worse, but I'm not as devastated as I was last month. So I'm slowly resuming whatever bit of "normal" life I have remaining. :)

I've missed you, too, and am so glad you commented! <3

[sigrundora]

A vacation home here!

[swirlsofpurple]

Very amusing!

What's life if you can't fantasise about what you'd do if rich