All my life, I was the textbook loser. Especially when it came to lotteries and raffles. I swear, I NEVER won anything in those things. Even as a kid I’d be the eager beaver when it came to filling out raffle coupons, foolishly excited at the idea of winning something out of sheer luck. But through the seventies and the eighties and the nineties, I won pretty much oodles of nothing, tons of zeroes, and millions of diddly-squat. For me the apex of my rotten luck was one year, during an RX Christmas party, when we were having our company raffle. There were 2 people left, and there were 2 prizes left. It was just me and another RX jock, and the remaining prizes were a kick-ass TV, and 1,500 worth of GC’s from a hamburger joint. I really thought I was going to take home a brand new TV. Guess which DJ ended up with the crappy GC’s? A fortune teller even told me once, “you’re not lucky in raffles or any other kind of gambling.” Duh, ya think? Even in love I had no luck. Even the losers thought I was a loser. It didn’t really bother me anymore, I eventually just treated it as a disability, like a limp or a missing finger. But then strangely, out of nowhere, it just turned. In the early 2000′s, we were at a Coke event and the grand prize in the raffle was a boombox. When they announced the winner, it sounded like a foreign word – it sounded to me like, “Bambalaboogah!” The experience of hearing my name announced as a winner in a raffle was so alien to me that I couldn’t even recognize my own name! After that, I’ve started winning in raffles – nothing major, like a car or millions in the lotto, just simple prizes – but at least the curse seemed to have been lifted. In different raffles, I’ve won a watch, a toaster oven, free gas, a DVD player last year, and just last Friday during the RX Christmas party, I won a portable DVD player! And it’s just so weird that people now generally consider me lucky (or for my enemies, “a lucky bastard”). But I guess the biggest sign for me that the tide has finally turned in my favor, is hitting the jackpot with the biggest prize I have ever won to date — finding my one true love. Naks!
