Bo-Bo Knows Gratitude for Losing Scratch Tickets

I buy a scratch ticket maybe once every three years, so you know it was a bad day when, exhausted, I convinced myself that the answer to all my problems lay behind a silver film I could scratch away with a quarter. Surely, the fates would be kind to the woman who believed—even for a second— that the urge to buy a ticket was a clear sign that freedom could be bought for the price of a garishly colored dream.

Alas, no.

But I've decided this is a good thing. Because as Emily Dickinson once said in her halting nineteenth century way: "success is counted sweetest by those who ne'er succeed." Never mind how much that line reads like the sour grapes of a hermit woman who spent her life pushing society away. Because really, where's the sport in scratching your way to a brighter tomorrow? Had I won that million-dollar prize, I'd have been elated, sure. But what would that have taught me? A winning card might bring me a fortune, but my loser card gives me a chance to become the kind of scrappy person who doesn't need a stinking scratch ticket.

So screw you, Massachusetts State Lottery! Screw you, mom in Stoneham who scratched off a $10 million prize at Fast Freddies in Wakefield last week. Money? That's nothing. The real prize is the epiphany that comes from banging your head against the grind until a new solution presents itself. You know. Teach man a fish and all that happy horse shit.