Tuesday, October 25, 2005

The Idiot Tax

AHhhhhhhh the lottery. The minds playground as I like to call it. I will admit that I am that guy who pulls the tab on every McDonald's cup and scratch game I come across. For some reason the lure of something for "virtually" nothing is just too great. At the same time it is kinda sad.
Several years ago I was at a board meeting in a large corporation. Granted I was there as a substitute, I had been called in from the bullpen for relief of a lazy manager, but non the less I was there. And since I am smart enough to know that my mouth should and will not open in this meting I really watched these "successful" people closely.
There was a guest speaker who I suppose was there to impart great words of wisdom. Which in a small subtle way she did. There on the table after the food break I noticed that she had a cup with TWO chances to win 1 million dollars. When she was done with the cup she just threw it away. She had seen the game on the cup. I mean crap half the room had looked at their pieces. She wasn't concerned with it. I think that she knew that nothing comes from nothing. If you want it you have to put out effort for it. She also struck me as someone who wanted something on her own merit. She wasn't looking for something for nothing. Because that one ingredient isn't what complete's the person. That pondered me for the longest time.
And last night when I was standing in line at the gas station buying my 1 chance at tons of free money, I thought I probably looked like an idiot when I pulled that cup outta the trash and won nothing.

4 comments:

Jeremy said...

Good stuff man.

I wish the entire world would read Atlas Shrugged.

I have said that more than once now but the entire world has done nothing about it.

Pegg

epalmer said...

Here's the lesson I learned . . . when you collect all those "Best Buy Bucks" from your fries and cups - like 540 "Best Buy Bucks" - and you go to Best Buy to cash those suckers in for a sweet new TV or a sweet new internal hard drive (Sam), they look at you and say with a chuckle, "sorry sir, but you can only redeem 2 "Best Buy Bucks" at a time. Well "F" you, Brian from media. "F" you.

epalmer said...

By the way, Aaron, thanks for the NyQuil post. I almost freakin' peed my pants . . . and Sam is not our only "common friend." Ryan Pallone has been my best friend since elementary school. He directed me to your blog after he made fun of me for having one.

Enigma Productions Photography said...

Poor Us, hahah
You can always get ryan back by reading his IM away messages. Those are some real gems, pearls of wisdom if you will.

Well nice to meet ya.