Even though I’ve never purchased a lotto ticket a day in my life, I’ve often fantasized about winning it. There’d be streamers, confetti, cameras and TV crews with me holding my heart with one hand and waving a resignation slip for my job in the other. There’d be ocean-side vacation homes, cars with bumpers still intact, European vacations, indoor heated swimming pools with sunrooms attached.
In none of my fantasies did I scratch off a winning ticket with a Jimmy Fund logo in the righthand corner.
It always seems like a routine, no-strings-attached kind of question when a cashier at Stop & Shop asks me if I’d like to donate to the Jimmy Fund.
Then she gives me the choice between donating $1, $5 and $10. And at that moment, I imagine a microphone sprouts from the neck of her shirt, and every patron in the store leans forward to hear my response.
“Just a dollar this time,” I mumbled last weekend—the same humbled response I’ve been giving since the day I began the first of three year-long maternity leaves and started popping out a band of money-suckers—aka, three loving children.
And when I watched that cash register increase by a mere digit, images of children in their hospital beds flashed before my eyes, and I bowed my head a bit lower.
I watched my three healthy children running directly in the path of moving carriages, nearly knocking down a magazine rack in the process, and I remembered how annoyed I was with them right up until the cashier uttered the words “Jimmy Fund.”
I might as well have had the word “ZERO” tattooed across my forehead.
At that moment, the cashier handed me a lottery ticket. No matter how many times I contribute to the Jimmy Fund, I’m always taken aback by that ticket. Immediately I began calculating in my head how much it cost to print. Considering the price of the ink, coating film, silicone, and paperboard, I deduced, each ticket has to cost at least $0.50, thereby reducing my already measly contribution to the remaining fifty cents.
I perform the same kind of mental calculations every time the Jimmy Fund’s color photo-printed promotional package, complete with a year’s supply of return addresses, comes through the mail. They’ve been sending it every year since 2006, the year I sent a donation for $25. I figure the cost of printing and postage shaves $5 off that donation every single year.
Last year was first year my “donation” fell into the negatives. Nothing says altruistic failure more than knowing the Jimmy Fund has outspent you on its promotional mailings.
On my way out, Jimmy Fund Triple Winner Game ticket in my hand, I passed a veteran in full uniform at the entrance of the store. I scraped the bottom of my purse for anything I could find to add to his collection box. He handed me a paper poppy worth more than my donation itself.
Now I was standing there with my freedom and a paper poppy, all for the price of seventy-eight cents. If I stood on the edge of Death Valley and plunged headfirst, I don’t think I could have sunk any lower.
I sat in my car and stared at the ticket. I scratched off the first number. $10,000.
I sighed. What kind of monster would cash in a lottery ticket for $10,000 when it had a picture of Jimmy himself right there on the front of it?
I scratched off the next number. $10,000.
Now I began to feel a bit sick. If the third number read $10,000, I was a grand prize winner. Or a grand-size loser, depending on the way you looked at it.
I could give the money right back to the fund, I reassured myself. But then I thought of the addition that’s been on hiatus since we ran out of money to finish it. I thought of how we owed twice the amount on that ticket to the MasterCard company alone. I thought of the year 2028, when if all goes according to plan, all three of my kids would be enrolled in college at the same time. How could I fork over that kind of money to charity when I had all the qualifications of being a charity case myself?
Reluctantly, I held my breath and scratched off the third number.
$10,000.
I dropped my paper poppy to the floor.
Oh, God.
I’d just won $10,000 from the Jimmy Fund.
I thought of throwing the ticket out my window, just to save me from the task of making such a decision.
I know, technically, it wasn’t $10,000 out of the hospital’s pocket. But it was $10,000 Stop & Shop could have been donating to kids with cancer, and here it was, in my unworthy hands instead.
And then, there it was again—those children’s faces—their images permanently seared into my brain.
I became a bit dizzy. My eyes were blurry. I stared at the ticket a little bit longer.
And that’s when I saw it.
$10,000. $1,000. $10,000.
I’d been seeing things. I was off by a 0. This ticket was worth no more than the $1.00 I could save on my next purchase of 7 oz. Salt Water & Vinegar Waffle Cut Chips.
Finally, I exhaled.
I was going to buy those chips, I decided as I tore that ticket into 10,000 pieces. I was going to eat every last bitter, vinegary bite. I was going to buy them at full price. And nothing in this world would taste sweeter.