This afternoon I interviewed a local shop owner for a story about how people are lining up to buy tickets. His last name was Munshower.

When I wrote the story, I misread my handwriting and typed, "Manshower." Man. Good thing I caught THAT before it broadcast. Hee. Manshower.

I don't buy lotto tickets. During high school, in my trigonometry class, the teacher showed us a video about the lottery and it's soured me for life. You see, you can't win.

What Everyone Always Says: "What do you mean, you can't win? PEOPLE CAN WIN!"

What I Always Say: "I didn't say people don't win. I said YOU CAN'T WIN."

Everyone: "What about lotto winners? There's LOTTO WINNERS. Are you saying they're actors or something?"

Me: "I didn't say there aren't lotto winners. I just said, YOU will not be one of them."

The thing is, from a strictly mathematical standpoint, a person winning the lottery is an impossibility.

Eveyone: "What do you mean, it's impossible? Don't people win?"

Me. "SIGH. I didn't say that people don't win. I said it's mathematically impossible for a person to win."

The reason it's impossible is that the odds of winning are so miniscule, they mathematically do not exist. I can grab Neal, look him in the face, and say, "You will nevereverever win the lottery. You can buy 100 tickets per week every week for the rest of your life, and you will never win the jackpot." And I would not be a liar.

People really, really don't want to hear this. They are so wrapped up in the lottery's campaign, to hear that "you can't win if you don't play" is actually bullshit because you can't win even if you DO play is terrible thing for loyal lotto ticket buyers. And they always want a fight about it.

That film I watched had lotto workers testifying, telling us that any intelligent person would NOT play, because it's impossible for that person to win. And, jeez, what a racket. Lonely old men with no money and no lives pouring out boxes of losing lotto tickets - literally thousands of dollars worth of broken dreams. It was sickening.

People are also under the delusion that the more they play, the better chance they win. Um, no. You have the exact same chance of winning the 400th time you play as you do the 1st time. Sorry, but it's true.

Some think the numbers they choose make a difference. Once again, no. The odds are EXACTLY THE SAME that the machine will pick 1-2-3-4-5-6 as they are the machine will pick 11-24-27-39-40-49. Sucks, huh?

So I didn't participate in our office's lottery pool. The first time they asked and I had to tell them why, I had to have the above arguments with about 7 different people. I may buy into the next one, though. Not because I have fantasies of fame and fortune, but because it's kind of a bonding thing, and I'm starting to feel like an annoyingly-logical party pooper. But I'm not. It just makes me sad to watch people throw their money away by buying into a government-endorsed scam.

Ah, well. When I'm not King of the World (yet), but when I am, I'll do something about it.