Aunt Mimi is visiting from Eastchester. Last night after dinner, she pulled out a gift: a pile of NY State scratch-offs, one for each of us, including the kids. It is a longstanding Behr tradition to do communal scratch-offs one person at a time, narrating as we go. The adults went first and came up empty. Not one stinking winner in the lot.
Then Alden had her turn. She approached the act of scratching with appropriate reverence and focus.
She scratched and scratched, her goal to match three dollar amounts. We previous four scratchers had suffered heartbreaking near-misses, so no one was getting his hopes up. But when she reached the end, LO!, Alden was the proud owner of a $2 winner!
She collected her earnings and promptly left for Atlantic City.
Next up was Kato, who scratched and came up dry. He’d better get used to this kind of disappointment. He is, after all, a middle child.
Which brings us to August. We presented him with his card and penny. He was excited by the prospect of his first scratch-off, but requested a short nap before scratching (in order to summon the needed energy).
A few minutes later, he woke up, scratched, and won—three dollars!
He collected his earnings and promptly fell asleep, dreaming of commerce (what does a baby want to buy?), blissfully unaware that this probably the only time in his life he’ll ever be ahead of the lottery.
OK, this cracked me up. To the point that my husband asked what the heck on my screen was so funny, at which point I showed him, and he then cracked up. Little does (rich, little) August know. Big congrats to (rich, pretty) Alden!