It Could Happen To You

Don’t laugh now because you’ve been doing it too — dreaming of grandiose plans if you were the sole winner of the P575M grand lotto jackpot. No one has won as of tonight (!!!), which means tomorrow’s grand prize is going to be bigger, which means the lines to the lotto booths are going to be longer.

Long line of hopefuls around 3pm three weeks ago at the Glorietta lotto outlet

My plan hasn’t really changed much since I wrote about it in February: I would buy a jacket if I won the lottery. Just tonight, JB told me to give him a P5M “balato” if I won. I said that I would just treat him to Taco Bell. Ma’am Mia also appealed for monetary goodwill but I suggested a pizza party instead; I would treat everyone (and by “everyone” I mean the members of my department) to Woodbridge Pizza.

The topic of the lotto was brought up when I texted my friends that I was taken aback by this man (featured on the evening news) who purchased P560 worth of lotto tickets (that would be 28 tickets, right?). With P575M at stake, I’m pretty sure that other people have purchased more. Personally, I’m not one to go all-out when it comes to these games of chance. It might sound trite but I kindasorta believe that if you are meant to be the grand lotto winner, then the planets and stars will align in your favor and the universe will conspire to make that happen. Therefore, you don’t need 28 tickets — you need just one. Oh okay, maybe two.

Ever since, I’ve always played two lotto tickets. I like the idea of a “second chance” (because we all deserve a second chance LOL) but not a third chance or a fourth chance, etc. I picked up this way of thinking while watching Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, one of my favorite movies ever. It was from this scene:

Charlie Bucket, how many [chocolate bars] did you open?

Two.

That’s easy. Two hundred is twice…

Not two hundred. Just two.

TWO? What do you mean you only opened two?

This was an important scene to me when I was seven years old. There was something to admire in humble Charlie Bucket’s insistence that he only really needed to open two chocolate bars, in hopes of finding the golden ticket. But then he had to follow it with: I don’t care very much for chocolate, to which I wanted to counter with: THEN WHY EVEN BOTHER? 

Anyway, my favorite character was (still is) Veruca Salt, whose father bought all the Wonka bars he could get his hands on if only to calm his daughter’s tantrums (I won’t talk to you ever again, you’re a rotten mean father, you never give me anything I want! And I won’t go to school till I have it!).

Give me that ticket! It’s mine! I found the golden ticket!

To refer to another movie, Eat Pray Love, one of the characters narrated a story about a man who spent his life praying to the statue of great saint, begging Please, please, please, let me win the lottery. Finally, the exasperated statue comes to life and looks down at the begging man and says, My son, please, please, please, buy a ticket. (Direct quotes lifted from the book.)

Well I’ve been going on and on about the what-if’s in winning the lotto but the thing is… I haven’t played since February.