$17 and a Stubby Holder
We’re all hanging on to the little things as signs of hope in 2020
In the early morning light last Saturday as a I was going for a run through our lovely Botanic Gardens, two lovely ducks crossed my path. 9 times out of 10 when you go near a bird, they’ll flap away when they hear clomping feet, not taking any chance on danger. But these two characters just held their ground, standing on the path looking out over the body of water they must have called their own. I was spellbound. I stopped and took it in, kind-of pretending that me and the duckies were all that was left in this crazy world, and how beautiful this little scene was. It was exactly what I needed to grab some hope to start the day.
Regular readers to this column know of my opposition to the gambling ads on TV, to the pokies, and my views on the damage this all does to some parts of our society. So, I guess you’re right to judge me as a bit of a hypocrite when I tell you that me and the boss put a Lotto ticket in every week. Paradox? Inconsistent? Sure. Let’s move on. Our ticket is online, so upon waking up each morning after a draw occurs, it is with a sense of great hope that we grab our phones to check if we’ve claimed ‘The Big One’. I’m typing a column, so I’m not yet on my desert island eating Turkish Delight chocolate for breakfast and being fanned by bikini girls. Nope, our big win last Sunday morning was $17. Enough for quite a few Turkish Delights, but the island is still out of reach for now. This funny amount of $17 has been our Sunday morning tally a few times this year, which begs the question if it’s just a cruel joke by somebody upstairs to keep us interested (you know how gambling works, right?). As a mathematician, I know the odds are well and truly against me. Playing ‘Powerball’ sees your chances of a life on the desert island at a mind-boggling one chance in a hundred and thirty-four million. Gotta be in to win it, they say. I’ll hang on to that little bit of hope, somebody has to be the lucky one.
Our recent move to town has seen us jump back into the world of the pub trivia night. Our new ‘local’ does a great feed, and the lovely people we’ve joined on a table provide an impressive and eclectic mix of general knowledge (and brain crap) which has seen us at the pointy end of the tallies these past few weeks. Having the host read out 80s music questions, sitcoms, cult movies and other weird ones has been a relief to my brain, which has seen all this ‘brilliance’ trapped inside me for a while. The Geography and History legends on our table do much of the grunt work, whilst our pop culture Einstein saves our bacon on many occasions. We were in the mix as the last round beckoned, and an impressive tally of 11 out of 12 (thanks Elon Musk, Kourtney Kardashian and Phil Collins) had us feeling like royalty ourselves as we were announced as winners! The prize… A week on desert island? A lifetime supply of Turkish Delight? Nope, but a bottle of bubbly, a drink voucher and a couple of stubby holders is certainly nothing to sneeze at. As I walked around on Friday, I felt that everyone was looking at me differently – they must have known I was the ‘Trivia Champ’ from the previous night. This little boost of hope was just the tonic I craved to get to the weekend. There’s hope in everything.