Somebody's gotta lotto, might as well be me

This week I bought a lottery ticket. I have never done that before. I mean a real lottery ticket, the one for MegaMillions. Of course I have purchased the scratch-and-win kind. Once I went on a three-week run with those things because I kept winning $2 here or a free ticket there. I kept reinvesting and reaped a $50 payout. Then, after I went through another $20 worth with no wins, I got tired of it and stopped.
But this week, I saw a blurb in the paper that said the big lotto rolled over to $112 million and I figured since it was hitting real money, it might be worth the dollar investment to take a shot at it.
Now, let me point something out. I am in scads of debt. I mean buckets of it. By the container shipload. If I ceased to eat, take up space and stopped requiring any kind of material goods to continue existing, I would still have to work for a couple years to pay it off. I mean, seriously.
I am not complaining here, because I chose it. I'm just saying that a $112 million payout seemed like it could do a lot of good in my life. Like solve 70 percent of my problems. Sure it might bring some new, bigger ones, but I felt ready for that challenge.
So I bought the ticket. The grinning Indian clerk at the quickie mart told me "Good luck!" with such kindness and sincerity that I felt we were friends, brothers in this great human drama.
As I drove away, I remembered something. God is very big. B-I-G. He holds the molecules of the earth together, keeps their electrons orbiting right. His presence keeps the universe from spinning apart. So probably he controls a bunch of numbered ping pong balls spinning in a chamber of full of forced air. And he knows how much I worship money and new stuff. And probably he thinks that me getting enough money to do whatever I want right now might not be the best outcome.
Dang.
I wasn't getting anywhere with this line of reasoning, so I decided to stop thinking about what God would want. Look, I will not live extravagantly, I thought. I will only buy one new car. And I'll keep the one I have now. I mean, I'll need a sedan to drive to work and a truck to haul things in. So the only thing I'll really splurge on is a sports car, you know, as sort of a little treat. But that's it. I don't need a new house; I'll just pay off the one I'm in and stay there. Maybe fix it up a little. The porch needs work and the kitchen is screaming for a remodel. I'll give 10 percent to my church. I'll be very reasonable, when I get back from my six-month vacation. I mean, sheesh, I've been working for four years without a decent, feet up, sipping-a-cool-drink-on-the-beach vacation.
I left the lotto receipt in my car when I got home. Things were looking pretty good for me. Except I couldn't get away from this nagging feeling that God was still the boss and he might have plans for me other than erasing my financial burden in a single cosmic stroke. Seems like he's more into long-term, character-building exercises. Like working off debt the hard way.
And really, winning was up to him. I mean, the odds are 175,711,536 to one.
But I still hoped and I kept returning to my stripped-down -- Spartan, really -- wealth daydream. Then this morning, I fished the ticket out of my glove box and visited the lotto Web site for last night's drawing.
I checked each number carefully. Hmmm... first number didn't match. S'okay. You still get $250,000 if you get five right. Second didn't match either. I kept scanning.
Not one match.
Not one.
Remember my earlier conviction that God controls ping pong balls? I suspected that my incongruous numbers might be a subtle message from him.
I guess I will not be buying any more lotto tickets any time soon.
Dang.