Load of balls

Playing the national lottery used to be fun.

Select a few random numbers and off they roll, a tenner here, a tenner there, never the jackpot but maybe one day. All a bit of harmless fun.

Somewhere the fun of doing the lottery has been lost. In fact I can pinpoint the exact moment. It would be when the man suggested that we stick to the same birthday numbers every week.

Being the scatter-head that I am I had always avoided chosing the same numbers in fear that one week they will come up and I forgot to buy the ticket. So for a time I contested the mans suggestion and merrily picked random as and when I could be bothered. Eventually though I agreed, believing that if I didn’t I would not hear the last of it. I decided to make one rule, that the man be responsible for the purchasing.

From that minute onwards I knew the fun of the game was over. Every week I reminded the man, as he did me if he could not get to a lotto point (so much for our deal). This continued for two very stressful years and a fair few pounds. With a grand total of £20 in winnings not great.

Once we had started how could we stop? The numbers were bound to pop up on that exact week and no doubt we would end up divorcing over it. I began to believe that those sneaks at lotto headquarters must be rubbing their greasy little hands together at our stupidity. There had to be some way of justifying a reason to stop.

Then it happened, well toddler son happened. You see, we had based our numbers on birthdays ( as do most people ) The mans, mine, my mothers, his mothers, and our two children. Six magical stupid numbers. Yet now we had another child. How could we leave his birthday out?? Ha haa, this was the perfect opportunity to end it. We could go back to random digits and the fun of choice.

Funnily enough, this time around it was not the man that was worried by the impending doom of those previous numbers rolling out. No. It was me.

When it came to the crunch I couldn’t do it. “It could be you” rings in my ears, followed closely by “Not without those numbers though”.

I have reasoned to myself that when we win the lottery toddler son wont mind being left out much. After all, being potty trained on the golden toilet I buy will be far more cosy than that old white thing.

Note to self: Get a grip, buy a lottery ticket and some gold paint.