On gambling

There are a lot of gambling options available these days. Everything from a Vegas weekend vacation to a lotto ticket is within easy reach. I would like to be a gambler. Unfortunately, I am really bad at it. I never win. Not even once. I have never won a contest, had a winning scratch off ticket, purchased a winning bingo card or become a multi-millionaire because of a lotto ticket. I suck at gambling. More to the point, I suck at winning anything while gambling.

There are and have been people in my family who always seem to win something. Green lawn furniture painted with beer logos from a store promotion contest. One-dollar scratch off tickets will yield fifteen dollars at the gas station. Large stuffed pink panthers fall from the claw machine at the movie theatre. The best I have ever done is to have the underside of my bottle cap say, “Sorry, Try Again” instead of “You Are One Unlucky SOB, By The Way I Urinated In This Bottle.”

I am probably the only person in the world who is afraid of going to Las Vegas and gambling. I fear that I would mistakenly bet one of my vital organs on the crap table and end up leaving town without my liver. I am not so sure that that is something that should “Stay in Vegas”.

There should be a reverse “Pity The Poor Losers Lottery” for those of us who never win anything. We would each be paid a dollar for entering the contest. Then a number would be drawn and only that person would lose. The rest of us would each get a million dollars as long as we swear to never gamble again and to give up our livers only after we die.