I went out and paid my Tax on the Stupid today, buying five bucks worth of Powerball tickets (two for me, two for Marky Monkey, and one for good luck, which we’ll split if it hits).
My mom has always called the lottery the Tax on the Stupid, and not without reason. The odds of winning are 1 in 120,000,000, which is abysmal, but when that jackpot goes over 200 million bucks, people line up like Pavlov’s rats for tickets.
Of course, mom and I are two of them. Just because you acknowledge something is stupid is no reason not to do it. I give you skiing.
The funniest part was my dad freaking out over the potential legal implications of me buying tickets for someone else. I got a mini-lecture on the ream of cases of people tearing each other to pieces in court when one person bought tickets for a friend.
I said I’d mark the tickets, but this didn’t satisfy him. I finally shut him up by emailing Mark his numbers this afternoon after I bought the tickets so he couldn’t accuse me of marking the ticket after the jackpot was drawn.
Hooray for paranoia…It’s not like either of us is actually going to win, and even if we do, odds are very good it won’t be more than about ten bucks.
But I’m glad I went out and paid my Tax. Besides, I can think of much dumber ways to spend five bucks.