So yesterday at work I was involved in a classic e-mail chain regarding what else, tonight's Mega Millions drawing. The basic issue at hand, two of our friends just straight up don't understand how the lottery works. It blows my mind.
Lets give you a little background, I have one friend, we'll call him Dr. Jack and he may or may not occasionally write TV related blogs here, who I heard second hand asked "where does one buy lottery tickets." Ok, that's issue one.
I have another friend, formerly one time co-blogger pennypacker, who basically admitted to having no idea that, A) the lottery was at a record high, and B) How a lottery works. Sample questions:
oh ... ah I'm good, when is the drawing anyway? is this a ma lottery or national
i always wonder what the tipping point is on these thing ... the lotto will be at $400 mil and no one will buy and it will get to like $450 mil, the news will call it the biggest ever and then everyone buys ... weird dynamic
AND
is there definitely a winner for this thing? I'm really not too familiar but dont think there's always a winner
AND
But can u choose you numbers?
Those are all direct quotes. DIRECT QUOTES.
It got me thinking about which stance was more absurd. I'm fairly certain it's a dead heat.
On the one hand, "Dr. Jack" only presents one issue, not knowing where to buy tickets, while friend B, has a whole host of issues going on, but...
I kinda feel like Friend B just might be yanking my chain? Like any kid that's been to Chuckee Cheese knows how the lottery works after playing that game where you drop a token in and hope yours pushes all the others over the edge, you learn that around the age of 6. And then there's slot machines, which whether you play them or not, if you have an IQ above 80 you know the idea behind them.
Dr. Jack on the other hand is crazy. I've known where to buy lottery tickets since i was 8? Maybe even 6? I'd wager that you can't walk 3 blocks in any direction in the city without crossing at least one place where you can buy tickets. Not having played before is one thing, but the idea that you've never once noticed people buying lottery tickets while you were in a convenience store, just blows my mind.
Don't get me wrong, I ridiculed Friend B mercilessly yesterday. He's a relatively smart kid (or so I thought) just apparently lacking any general knowledge of the operational workings for how a lottery works. But I think Dr. Jack still takes the cake. The level of oblivion involved in not knowing where to buy a lottery ticket is flat out impressive. That's over two decades of oblivion.
Feel free to weigh in, but my stance is pretty clear...not knowing where to buy a ticket is WAY more of an unbelievable phenomenon than Friend B's utter ignorance of the lottery.
