Thursday, July 31, 2014

Sometimes You Just Can't Win. Even When You Do.


Poor Ivory Mitchell.

After buying lottery scratch-off tickets since Richard Nixon's second term, he thought he'd finally hit the jackpot. After buying five of the things July 20th, two indicated he had won $1,000. Nice payoff after forty-two years of playing, isn't it?

But wait. The agency that runs the Wisconsin lottery is claiming that the tickets are defective. Misprints that aren't worth the cardboard they're printed on. In a show of bureaucratic benevolence, the Wisconsin Department of Revenue has offered to reimburse Mr. Mitchell the ten-bucks it cost him to be a kinda sorta but-not-quite winner.

Ivory Mitchell is a sixty-four year-old retired welder who undergoes dialysis and is living off of disability, and who had planned to use the winnings to repair his roof, gutters and a fence.

It might just be me, but wouldn't it be cool if some combination of the Wisconsin lottery and the vendor who supposedly misprinted the tickets somehow managed to come up with the two-grand that would make such a difference at one end and barely register at the other?

I'm guessing that after forty-two years of purchases, all concerned have turned a very tidy profit on Mr. Mitchell.

Just a thought.