Craps
by Eric Miller
Craps Hazard
had a bad habit; no, more precisely, an addiction.
He could not walk by a vending machine that sold
scratch-off lottery tickets without buying one.
He rarely got a winner. When he did, it was
either for a free ticket or just a few dollars at
most. Craps lost a lot of money, owed a lot of
money, and was in a lot of trouble with his
creditors and his wife. His clothes were
constantly covered with the scrapings from his
tickets. He suffered from carpal tunnel syndrome,
the repetitive stress injury to the wrist, due to
all the tickets he scratched using a coin, as
well as from all the dice he tossed at the craps
table.
One morning,
while at the supermarket, Craps put a dollar into
the scratch-off lottery ticket vending machine,
as he was leaving with his purchases. A 3 year
old toddler, walking with his mother, saw Craps
insert the money. The toddler ran to the machine
and pushed several buttons. A ticket popped out.
The toddler ran off with the ticket, with his
mother and Craps chasing him. The toddler’s
mother grabbed her son, telling him to give the
nice man his ticket. The toddler made his
displeasure known with a world class tantrum.
Although Craps was a little more than irritated,
he said to forget it, but the mother insisted on
giving him a dollar.
Later that
week, the front page of the local newspaper had a
large color photo of the toddler and his family
holding a check for $30,000 from the State
Lottery. A wonderful story was told about the
toddler bringing good fortune to the family
because he pushed the right button.
Craps
contacted the family and threw a world class
tantrum. They gave him $1499.50.
He never won
again.
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