Johnny's Texas Lottery Luck Out:

You may have already read about this in the newspaper, but here's what really happened.

My wife and I really lucked out in the Texas lottery this week.

We bought a ticket finally (our 1st) and then we started worrying. What would we tell everyone when they found out we gambled? And of course we realized of that we would win millions of dollars. In fact our ticket had a lot better chance of winning than your average ticket since ours was a composite of the children's birthdays which of course isn't just a bunch of random numbers! You folks that know them can testify that our kids are NOT very random!

After we won the lottery our lives would change forever. We are not talking about small changes either. We started doing research on the internet as soon as we got home from the 7-11 on Westly and Terrell street here in Greenville, Texas where we got our winning ticket. One of the first things we found out is that most couples have problems with all that money. Can you imagine?

Also we realized that you have to move almost immediately! We kind of like our house here. Man it's even got three bathrooms. But you can't take a chance on kidnappings and such when you're as rich as we were about to be.

We'd have to get a real large house with all kinds of security alarms, big fences, body guards and all such. My wife said that she wanted high brick fences with broken glass embedded in the top like they do in England. And fancy iron gates that automatically open when you drive in (if it's really you - and how does the gate know?).

And of course it would have to have another (outhouse) for the servants and cars and stuff.

Then we had to decide about whether to have the guards wear uniforms or be in the cognito so to speak. My wife wanted uniforms like in that movie that ended up with the body guard in love with the beautiful singer even though she was black and he was Kevin Costner. I said I didn't want any Kevin Costner body guard around here. And anyway where would he sleep. And I didn't think Kevin Costner was such a good body guard anyway. And besides, who would be on duty when he was sleeping? And of course that would be the prime kidnapping time since what fool kidnapper would try to get you in the day time?

Then we starting worrying about kidnappings. Would they take one of us or both of us. I figured it would have to be only one of us so the other could get them the money. But which one? My wife decided they would take me thinking that she would be more tender hearted and would give them the money immediately. She said that is where they would make their big mistake. (I wisely let that one slide by).

She said she was going to be like Mel Gibson on "RANSOM" and give out a reward for my return of several million dollars to anyone that would betray the evil kidnapping guy - even though she'd be going against the FBI's advice like Mel Gibson did in "RANSOM" where Mel went against the the big black FBI agent guy's advice even though he was just as big a star as Mel Gibson, but we couldn't remember his name.

Anyway, I pointed out that that strategy wouldn't work in real life and we immediately got into a heated discussion. My wife claimed that I didn't like that movie cause Mel Gibson was so good looking and lots smarter than me. I pointed out that he might not be so smart. After all someone else wrote the movie and all he had to do was say the lines. My wife said that it takes lots of brains to memorize all those lines, but I told her that in movies they could just keep doing re-takes until he (poor stupid Mel Gibson) got it right.

Since my logic was so flawless all my wife could do was sulk.)

Of course I realized about that time that I probably wasn't going to get many hugs and kisses for a while.

Boy did we have money problems. But that wasn't all!

After pouting a while, my wife pointed out that the IRS would be after us immediately pestering us sitting in front of our mansion beside the gate that automatically opened till we paid them. Then we got into another discussion (an unbiased listener might have called it an argument but of course it wasn't).

My wife claimed that we should get a lawyer-money manager guy who would save us as much of our hard won money as possible. I told her that I wanted a girl money-manager lawyer like that one on "Miami Vice". My wife said she wasn't going to let any half dressed hussy in here where I would have too much money and time on my hands...

Well I could see where she was going with that so I pointed out that it would be better for us to just pay what the IRS what they wanted as soon as we could and get them off our necks and away from our fancy gate that somehow knows its us and lets us in.

Anyway after more study we found out how relatively little the IRS wanted and we were glad for George Bush's tax cuts! The internet article pointed out that they take it immediately and you have no choice so that kind of ended our discussion.

Anyway we couldn't sleep that night and the lottery drawing wasn't until the next evening. So of course we both called in sick (which was not much of a stretch by the way) and waited baiting our collective breaths so to speak.

Finally that night (as they say) the lottery drawing was done and you can imagine our relief when we found out that somehow we HADN'T won!

Man we really lucked out!

P.S. My wife wants to buy another ticket next week saying "boy that was fun and it only costs a dollar", but I don't really think we can afford another week like this past one.