Games of Chance

I have a guilty pleasure...I love to play Monopoly - not the board game that goes on for hours, with corrupted real estate dealings, but the game of chance, like the one our Safeway Supermarket has going on right now.

As soon as the game was advertised I picked up my colorful, paper game board at our local grocery and made my purchases, yielding six game pieces.  I grabbed the six green squares, gleefully, and raced out of the store to take a look at what I got.  After carefully spreading out the board, I opened the game pieces revealing four smaller pieces that can be stuck onto the board in groups (think the colors that tie the properties together.  Eek - how exciting!  I pasted all of my pieces down and marveled at how quickly I was filling up my board; then I headed back to Safeway.

My daughter and I were laughing about how much fun we were having with this game and scheming about getting the winning ticket - perhaps for the vacation home, maybe the college education, when Rebecca said, "Mom, I think my friend Sophia is playing too! What if we shared our extra tickets?" Because by now, we had bags of extra green tickets that we didn't want to throw away, just in case. We worked out a deal with Sophia - any extras, we'd exchange and if we hit the jackpot, we'd split it. And, I headed up to Safeway.  

Flash forward five weeks - my game board is very full now - but for every "property" section, I'm missing one piece that would complete the property and make me a winner...even a five dollar winner.  I'm determined to win something. I know we will win!  I contemplate driving to another state for a larger variety of tickets.  I head up to my Safeway.  Two tickets - no winners.

My hubby went to Safeway yesterday to stock up for the weekend and a special dinner. When I got home, 12 green tickets were waiting for me on the table. They are still there!  All of the sudden I don't want to go through the possibility of not winning, anything; I'm not willing to actually take the chance...until I head up to Safeway for a couple of things, and come home with a few more tickets, and I decide that I might just have a chance.  I'll open them up and...?