THE LOTTERY: A Jackpot of Guilt

As the traffic congeals on LBJ, and my fellow commuters and I form an endless, metallic centipede inching toward home, the billboard taunts me again: A $55,000,000 jackpot for Wednesday, Fifty-five million! As always, 1 do the math and discover that I’ll be.. .hmm… 135 years old before I earn that much from honest toil or the magazine business.

So, almost against my will, 1 begin looking for an exit and a convenience store. One more time. This time. My time. I only play the big ones, anyway. Three mill? Eight? Hah! I’m not going to violate my principles and wallow in hypocrisy for anything less than 25 big ones. I’ve got my pride.

The lottery, which I am going to win, going to win, any day now, is a rich source of guilty pleasure. Any thinking person should loathe the lottery because, among other things,

●It’s hopeless. The odds are astronomically against your winning chump change, much less anything like what Johnny Carson once called the f-you money. Mathematically, Bill Clinton has a far better chance of being re-elected-with Phil Gramm as his running mate-than you do of winning enough to make a difference in your life.

●It’s mindless. Betting on pro football, by contrast, you can pore over injury reports, listen to radio gurus, and ponder the fact that the Cowboys are 8-2 in their last 10 games played on artificial turf at night against teams on which two or more starters are named Smith. You can read the stats, plot strategy with friends. You become an expert. You still lose your shirt, but at least you learn something. What is there to say about the lottery? “Hey, Todd! You going with 21,24,34,43,44, and 46 again, fella? Lotta fours there, pal! You know something 1 don’t know?”

●It is a snakes-belly low point for democracy when states finance their operations with gambling receipts. If we want services, we should dig down and pay for them. But we all know what happens in today’s political climate when a politician brings up t-a-x-e-s.

●Its promise of sudden, easy riches further undermines the Puritan work ethic, which in another hundred years wilt be known as the Japanese work ethic

●It incites the envy of our fellow citizens. Why should some pipe filler from Waxahachie suddenly have incredible megabucks, while you get nothing? Is he better than you or something?

Well, there are the reasons. And there, on that bill-hoard, are six big zeroes. Fifty-rive million dollars. As the philosopher Woody Allen reminded us a couple of years ago, “The heart wants what it wants.” And I want that $55,000,000. So I pull up to the 7-Eleven, put on the dark glasses and the overcoat, and go in to plunk down my dollars. If the gods of blind chance are flipping through the phone book of humanity, I’m listed under T.