I believe in good luck.

I have a confession, I buy lottery tickets. Sometimes I myself wonder why...
If luck were on a scale from 1 to 10 where 10 was the luckiest such as your lottery winners or the people who win vacations and trips all the time and 1 was your unluckiest of people who simply do not buy tickets because they always lose. The people who try to call the radio station or will put in for free stuff but will never win. I would probably put myself at a 2. Maybe a 1.95. I'm not lucky! My wife is not either. I have probably put in and called to win at least a hundred times. In all I have won once. And that was a t shirt! As far as the lottery goes, I again probably win around 20% of the time. Yes I do have my lucky streaks but they're not life changing and the value of them are minuscule even compared to some of my friends who have won bigger prizes.

Do you know anyone who is simply lucky?

Do you believe in luck? Do you believe some people are just lucky?

I do and it sucks sometimes. I mean come on UNIVERSE. Why them and not me? Why not spread some luck around.

I have 10 goals in life I would like to see happen in my lifetime. I'm adding one more today.

THAT IS..

To have some financial lucky thing happen to me that would be either life changing such as financial fortune or the more likely version of winning a top prize from some sweepstakes such as a dream vacation or even a disneyland vacation or some type of cruise.

That's never happened to me and yet I still believe it will. That is why I buy lottery tickets.

Before I get to my stories of luck (obviously from other people I know) I want to address a saying I've seen on Facebook. That is that the lottery is a poor man's tax. Ok I agree with you that your chances of getting wealthy are very very slim and the vast majority of people who do play the lottery lose especially when it comes to such games as the power ball or mega million. Then there are those who are addicted to the lottery who simply should avoid it at all cost. What those friends of mine on Facebook should do is go to an actual lottery winner and say that. Yes you may become rich through hard work and such but there is no way you can become instantly wealthy overnight unless your stock skyrockets or you win the lottery. That is again why I play. Yes it's a small minuscule chance.

But it's a chance!

And I typically have around 2 days of dreaming of my winnings before the disappointment begins. Yet my day dreams are great..... until I read off those numbers.

I myself have a few stories and again I will get to those after stories of some people I've met and some people I know.

Hmm where to begin..

How about a short story.

You know how much I love a good vacation right? Once at work the lottery topic came up. After sharing the most I've won a guy next to me said he won a vacation prize worth 28000 dollars. That included cash hotels airfare shows and much more. He enjoyed a 2 week vacations with just him and his wife living it up in Europe.

2 weeks is a bit extreme without my kids but still 28000 dollar prize?! As in the words of Napolean Dynamite, LUCKY!

In between these stories of luck I have decided to share my stories of how unlucky I am.

Summer/Fall 2006. My wife's father invites us to go to an air show outside of Pheonix Arizona. There was a vendor there who was advertising their company by giving away a cruise my wife and I are not interested in the product so we pass but still put in for the cruise. When I turned around after filling out the form my wife claims she saw them throw away that form. Too bad camera's weren't as popular as they are today. There are laws against that! My guess is they were acting like they were following state laws on sweepstakes with NO PURCHASE NECESSARY to avoid a gambling fine yet they were not going to give away a trip to a person not interested which is illegal yet still my luck.

We have these friends from our old ward who again seemed to have around a 6 or 7 on my lucky scale. Always winning at company parties even a few radio station prizes. At one company Party they won a pair of bikes among other stuff. There was a charity event we all went to. This was back in the days of us having no money and constantly fighting off medical bills. Our family and their family had both purchased raffle tickets for several prizes. The top prize was again a cruise. (I'm beginning to think I'm forbidden to win a cruise.) That family won something we didn't. The top prize actually went to the main organizer. Scam? I don't know everyone knew she deserved it for her efforts but again come on. Spread some luck my way universe.

We had these friends durring our early years in our marriage who had been to the CMA'S twice. Yes twice! How? No they don't have alot of money. They won both trips two years in a row from two different radio stations! The trips were all inclusive too! Airfare food and tickets to the CMA'S. Two years in a row!!

Do you remember the pepsi promotion in 1998? The Pepsi pop culture game where you collected phrases such as "As If" "Shop Till You Drop" "Talk To The Hand". If you found all of the words to the phrases you won a certain prize such as a shopping spree, trips, or even a brand new jeep wrangler. Now for this next part of the story I have to go on what I remember and what I heard and experienced. Looking back now I kind of doubt everything I am going to say is true but then again....... I don't know!
Anyways here is the story as I remember it. By this time I had been getting into snowboarding a little bit. I had been about 3 times and liked the sport and wanted to be better so the only prize I wanted was the snowboarding trip to Vail. From what I remember the phrase was "Been There Done That". The hardest word to find was "Been" The trip was several nights at some lodge in Vail Colorado for 4 people and included 5000 dollars spending cash. While I was at school I found out a friend of mine had "Been". He found it in a 24 pack. We decided to split the trip. We would both bring one friend and split the 5000 dollars where each of us would have 1250 each. If this actually happened this would be by far the best materialistic thing that has happened to me TO DATE that money can buy.
Well it never happened. Apparently after trying and even physically fighting his sister for two days his sister hid the promo word and he couldn't find it. As far as I know she didn't even cash in the prize which makes me question if it was real or not.

I apparently have more unlucky stories so here another one of mine.

My wife's grandma (step grandma or nana to be more specific) took care of an older lady who had a house in Staton Island. She was also very wealthy. She would hire my wife's grandma to take care of her cat's in Staton island. Yes you read right, cats! My wife's grandma could not go so she asked if her granddaughter could do it. She would get airfare and several grand per week by simply feeding cats! This was durring the summer after our second year of college. We also called up a summer camp to see about being camp counselors and we secured a job in New Jersey. The plan was to live at the cat house together for 3 weeks and then move to summer camp for the rest of the summer and eventually fly back home.
Again it didn't happen.
Once again our bad luck prevailed and we had to cancel the whole trip.

My wife won a thousand dollars from taco bell once. Apparently she found a game piece and left it on her dresser. When she returned home from school it was gone and her mom pulled up with a new car. Yep you guessed it she stole the game piece cashed it in and put a down payment on a car. Here's the real kicker she never admitted to doing that. She claimed for years that the game piece was lost. It wasn't until years later after talking to an aunt my wife finally realize that she had lied. She did in fact cash in the game piece that belonged to my wife.

For a grand opening of a new Papa Johns Store we were giving away free pizza and a bike. An older lady came in to enter the drawing. Before leaving she said with confidence that she would be back for the bike later that day. My boss smiled and wished her luck. Later that day she came back and WON! Later on I found out she is one of those lucky people who really do always wins. She's won anything from cash to trips including a few cruises. Again UNIVERSE you think you could let me have her good luck for 10-20 years while she has mine.
My hometown did a Christmas drawlings one year. They gave away alot of good presents that kids in my town could only wish having. At least my brothers and I wished we could have them. Did not win a thing. Hard to watch the snobby kids from school take home their build a monster kit or Legos they just won.
Speaking of Christmas my home town would do a coloring contest around Christmas. After both my sister and my brother won I decided to focus on one stores picture more than any other one so I could win a prize. I used colored pencils and really focused on staying inside the lines. Even used a brush to even out the colors. But again NO PRIZE!

Since writing this I've had tools I've needed stop working or break. My van that needed a new ac pump is not working and still has no ac, my wife has broken her 5th or 6th mirror she just got and my outdoor umbrella snapped in half.

Again just wishing for more ALOT more luck.

I think for now unless I find more stories I'll leave it at that. Life is full of unfortunate events that let us down and I still believe some of us gain our luck someday. I was just telling my wife we should endure our hardships well because it's training us with sympathy charity and management skills for the luck and blessings thar lie ahead.

Have a great weekend people and good luck to you.