Scratching Off Luck

So last week dude from the mail room crew hunted me down to ask if he could borrow 20 bucks. Um. Okay. I work two jobs, had it spare, and we are cool like that. I mean I understand what it’s like on that Monday through Thursday before payday Friday. Sometimes you’re calling out because you don’t have the gas or bus money to get to work. Or you are sitting hoping someone’s ordering lunch for the office so you can sneak a sandwich. Plus my mail room friend has 5 kids, 3 baby’s mommas, 1 ailing mother, a conviction, and is a black man in America. Working a legit job. Struggling to do right. So me going to the ATM wasn’t a grave sacrifice…

But the whole exchange of my money got me to thinking about my buddy’s finances. His tendency to play the numbers and hang with his man (a professional gambler) in Atlantic City on the weekends. I mean every time we get paid he’s on his way to get his money orders…and to play the numbers. The week I couldn’t fall asleep before 1am, he took it as a sign for him to play the number 1. He swore that he’d give me half of whatever he got. Well what is halvsies of nothing? Exactly.

But I have empathy towards this dude because I-myself-personally had a love for scratch-offs, back, back, back in the day when I was young. Whaaaaaaaaaat! A chance to win a thousand or even thousands of dollars and at most all I was paying was 2 measly bucks! I gotta tell you, there were scratch-offs in my car, on the floor of my room heck even in my cat’s pile of toys. Those of course were the losing tickets, the winning ones (the YOU’VE WON a dollar) were used to purchase more tickets. Can we say vicious cycle? And on one of the brokest days of my life…I hit it BIG! It was all about Ulysses S. Grant, what? 50 bucks! But that only happened like one time out of hundreds. Let’s think about the numbers. 2 dollars a day, 4 weeks, 12 months in a year!

Dizzzzzzzaum! It nearly cost me $500!

And no one is thinking about the folks who have been playing numbers since prohibition. Using birthdates, the number they dreamt about back in ’75 or the number of blue cars they saw that day. I mean it is only a few bucks a day, but spanned out over a lifetime….

Well it just got me to wondering who is really winning off this lottery and general gambling thing. I mean it’s not like I’m seeing Bill Gates picking numbers. I ain’t seeing scratch-offs as any of Oprah’s favorite things. Of course I don’t know what the uber rich do, but it would be ludicrous if they played right?

But isn’t it more ludicrous that the folks funding these mega million jackpots are the hopeful poor? That commercials like THIS-that I can’t get that beat out of my head-are made to target the hard working, but can’t quite make ends meet. Folks, who let’s be honest, are typically on the browner side of the spectrum.

It just saddens me that folks like my friend spend money hoping that Luck will be a loose and giving whore. Ha! Well I think folks would be better burying their lotto dollars in their yards, because truth is that Luck, more often than not is going to be a lady. An elusive, prudish. stingy ole lady, who ain’t giving it up any time soon!

See You in Seven

national bank of mint julep

a while back, i let my cousin hold some money. this cousin, we'll call her Shirl, is like a mother to me. since the first time i came to live in new york way back in 2001, she took care of me, inviting me to church, sunday dinners. she called me up one day back in october tellin me that her car had been towed that morning for having too many tickets. This carnapping surprised her because she had known of only one ticket on the car but then she found out that one of her daughters, Queeny, had also gotten a ticket on the car, one too many tickets for the city of new york.

being that Shirl lives out in boonies of Brooklyn (yes, such a place does exist) where you must take a long train and a long bus ride just to get back to downtown Brooklyn, i understood her need to get her car out asap. plus, the city of new york is ruthless when it comes to towed cars. not only do they make you pay off the tickets, you also have to pay the tow yard a per day charge of as much as $50 and up just to have your car sit there. i had let her hold $50 before and she had immediately paid me back so i thought nothing of it to let her hold $260, with her assurances that she'd set me straight soon.

fast forward to last week, christmas eve to be exact and my phone rings and it's Queeny. My dumb ass answers the phone immediately thinking that Queeny is calling with news that her sister had had her baby. Sista had gone into labor the day before and I was anxiously awaiting news of the baby, who I'd predicted would be a girl. Now Sista and me are tight, she let me live with her family in Brooklyn when I came back to NYC again in March for a few months until I found a place. Sista is so down to earth and, like me, always cracks on the bullshit predicaments that the rest of her family can get into. And Sista never asked me to "borrow" no money, in part because I kept her right for allowing me to stay in her place.

But anyway back to Queeny, so I answer the phone excitedly, "We got a baby yet? Is it a boy or a girl?" and Queeny fills me, it's a boy. I think, shoot, but yaaay! She chats me up a bit more about the baby as I try to get off the phone since it is only 8am. on christmas eve. exactly! but then Queeny proceeds to give me this sob story about how she needs to borrow $100 because she has no money until pay day next week.

Damn. She got me.

Don't you hate it when your family thinks you got money because they think since you a lawyer or [insert any regular job here] you got to have money. and since you aint got no kids you got to have money. uuuuhhhh no.... and no. my money is for me to do with as i please.

but seeing as how it was the season of good cheer and it was only $100 i figured what the hell, i'll let her borrow it. surely she will pay me back and in the off chance that she doesn't it's only $100. So I say ok, what bank are you with, i'll put it in your account.... Queeny: bank of america but you can't put it in there cause i'm in the negative.

damn Queeny!

this is why i can't fool round wit broke folk (add them to my list 'long with Black republicans). they ass wanna borrow money and then they ass so broke you can't even put it in they account cause they ass is already in the negative owing the bank and shit. this is just not a good sign for my ability to be paid back because Queeny broke ass already owe bank of america who knows how much in overdraft fees... sigh...

still i say ok i'll western union it to you. *cash register sound* add $10 on top off that $100.

so of course, the holidays are now over, another pay day has come and gone and I haven't heard head nor tail from Queeny, not even one of those generic "Happy New Year" text messages. Not to mention that her mama Shirl has not mentioned that $260 either.

I've been going back and forth about whether I should ask them for the money or just convert these loans into charitable contributions and let it go. I think about this song we sing in church at giving time.....give and it will come back to you, pressed down, shaken together and running over.... and think i aint hurtin for it. but then i think about the rest of that song. when you give, give to the Lord.

and neither Shirl nor Queeny is the Lord. although I'm more inclined to let Shirl go cause like I said I like her a lot. It just bothered me that she never mentioned it ever again. At least say, mint julep, i aint gonna be able to pay you back. cool I can live with that.

but its a new year, and one of the things I've been trying (and succeeding) to do well before the new year kicked off was to be more generous.

so i'ma let it go...but you best believe, na'an one of em betta not eva fix they mouth to ask me for money another time cause it aint gon happen....gotta keep credibility with the lender