How The Lottery Is Killing The American Dream

Winston and the Crablegs9 years ago

I take pride in the fact that I am a dutiful, patriotic American citizen and a currently-enrolled college student who’s partially intent on becoming rich through hard work and capitalistic enterprise, but mostly concerned with how I am going to afford my next booze purchase.

I also take pride in the fact that I’m an emphatically persistent, yet sadly unemployed, lottery player. A few weeks back, I was enjoying wasting my time sitting in a 30-minute queue at my local Publix grocery store waiting to buy Powerball tickets when a peculiar sight did I see. The blonde girl wearing a tight, low-cut shirt and shorts in front of me kept telling her oversized friend that if she wins, she is going to buy a beach house in Malibu and become famous overnight. My only problem was that I couldn’t tell her how outright stupid she sounded without also discrediting my own similar 1-in-292-million odds of winning the $1.5 billion grand prize. Somehow, in my own head, my odds of winning are much better than hers, if not for the fact that she hasn’t accounted for her own stupidity. And therein lies the problem I face: I have the same potential for choosing those winning numbers that this scantily clad sorority girl and the wide load next to her do.

Normally, I would not have made a big deal about all of this and would have gone on with my typical underwhelming day. HOWEVER, Blondie’s rotund friend then made the comment, verbatim: “When I win, I’m dropping out of school and I’ll never have to work for anything.” This pretentious meatball exemplified what is wrong with our lottery system in one swift lipsmack. Our nation, the greatest that can be found on this planet, is founded upon the principle that the harder you work, the better off you become. When I become successful as a lawyer, doctor, fireman, or any other cliché boyhood vocation, I don’t want this conceited powder-puff seated on a socioeconomic rung higher than myself because she waddled her way to the end of the metaphorical rainbow.

Don’t get me wrong — I’m not saying that the American dream is dead. No, I’m simply stating that there is a slow deterioration in cultural productivity due to an increasingly lazy American society. Then again, maybe I am the wrong person to be saying this. I mean I did watch the first five episodes of Making A Murderer on Netflix before googling, “Did Stephen Avery kill Theresa?” because who the hell can actually watch ten episodes of a documentary. Anyway, the point is that by allowing certain citizens, like the chunky meatsickle in front of me, to advance in life by guessing a few integers and getting lucky, the whole of society believes they can get by with the least amount of effort.

I guess there is a positive to take from all of this. If the San Diego Zoo that is Blondie and her pet walrus do end up winning the lottery, they should be able to afford more clothes and a tummy tuck, respectively. Regardless, you can find me on the couch sipping on a Bud Light watching Kevin O’Leary humiliate an entrepreneurial soccer mom for neglecting the difference between revenue and profit..

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