I got one lousy number on the recent Mega Bucks drawing. As such, I will not be quitting my job today.

After checking my numbers and realizing I was a big loser (hmm, that statement is true on several levels), I proceeded with my standard routine for disposing of tickets: I angrily tore it into one-hundred-million tiny pieces. I have this strange paranoia that I somehow misread the winning numbers, and I don’t want to just throw an in-tact ticket into the recycling box at my desk. The distress of not winning the lottery week after week is already almost more than I can handle. Imagine if I came across this headline in the Oregonian:

Cleaning Crew Finds Winning Lottery Ticket in Trash. Idiot Office Worker’s Loss is Janitor’s Multi-million Dollar Gain!

I realize that the “if I can’t win, no one can” mentality makes me kind of a jerk. Fine. I’m a jerk. But you have to understand that if I ever threw away a winning lottery ticket, and later realized it, I would DIE. It’s just not something I would get over. I cringe as I imagine the things people would say to me about how it just wasn’t meant to be, or how things happen for a reason, blah blah. If someone redeemed my winning ticket I would know exactly where I stand, karmically speaking, and it wouldn’t be pretty.

So, I will continue to manually (and therapeutically) shred tickets. Pay stubs, bills, anything that contains my social security number or other pieces of information useful in the stealing of my identity- those can go wholly into the trash. But not my lottery tickets. NEVER my lottery tickets.