Word of the Day: Sough

sough \SAU; SUHF\, intransitive verb:
1. To make a soft, low sighing or rustling sound, as the wind.

Did you hear that sough? That was me losing the lottery. I tried to win. I bought my $1 worth of tickets and waited anxiously, all the while determining what I would do with my winnings. And when the numbers were revealed, I was highly disappointed to learn that I'd lost.

Why do we spend money on seemingly useless endeavors like playing the lottery? As one winner said, "If you don't play, you can't win". That's true enough. But just how lucky do you have to be to win? A player who wants to win ten dollars in the Tic Tac Toe scratch-off game would have to spend an average of $112. To put these odds in context, suppose one buys one lottery ticket per week. 13,983,816 weeks is roughly 269,000 years; In the quarter-million years of play, one would only expect to win the jackpot once. Luckily, I only spent a dollar.

I buy tickets very infrequently, and usually only after the jackpot has hit a number greatly exceeding anything anyone could ever hope to frivolously spend in a lifetime or two. I do it for the momentary hope that I would not have to return to work the next day or for the rest of my life and could instead travel the world on a private jet. Sure the hope only lasts for as long as it takes them to pick the losing numbers, but isn't it worth one measely dollar? I think so.