The Lottery

I have developed a taste for talk radio.

I sat in my truck waiting for the segment to end or the rain to lighten up, whichever came first. As I waited, the windows started to fog around the edges and the view outside became blurry under the thin film of water layered on my windshield.  And yet, I saw this:

Inside the Blazer parked next to me there was a couple.  Like me, they took shelter from the falling water. A description of their appearances would not be kind to them, so I will refrain. But to give a vague yet accurate statement to that effect—the ‘70s were not kind to them either. Each held a cigarette between two of their fingers and a lottery ticket in each hand.  Four tickets between the two of them.  The woman lifted a lottery ticket to her mouth and gave it a kiss. The man mimicked her. She puffed cigarette and while the smoke lingered from her drawn out exhale, she kissed the other card.

Then, the kissing frenzy began. They both started rapidly kissing their cards and cigarettes in tandem. After 30 seconds or so, the kissing stopped.  They casually leaned closer to each other exchanged a real kiss and traded lottery tickets. The frenzy started again. Kisses were thrown out freely like Mardi Gras beads.  They landed on the tickets, the cigarettes, and each other until each surface was covered.  

It was clear to me that the rain wasn’t going to stop. I lost interest in the radio. The amount of kissing was becoming less of a spectacle and more awkward now that I was running out of time before they felt the heat of my stare. So I pulled up my jacket collar opened the door and braved the wet on my way into the supermarket for lunch.

On my way in, I was curious if they won anything at all. I assumed not since they did run past me to redeem the value of the tickets at the counter. They probably sat there after they vigorously etched off the gray boxes thinking, “We must not have kissed them enough.”  Yes, it all makes sense. This must be why they gave so many kisses to those small pieces of paper.  For every loss, they must have had this thought, “We’ll just have to kiss ‘em more next time.”